This portion of the screenplay is originally pages 14-26. It is presented
out of order to reflect the final film.
EXT. BLACKSTONE AVE. - 2000 - NIGHT
Dark night. Most street lights shot out. Just one or two of
the eerie vapor lights left on the block.
A MIDDLE-AGED AFRICAN-AMERICAN MAN carries his single bag of
groceries. The man listens and watches carefully, as he
negotiates the darkness between the few pools of light on the
street.
We won't see his face until he reaches the next pool of
light, but he walks with shoulders hunched in fear.
Moving down the block, all shops abandoned. Broken windows.
Rats. The man almost trips over a vague shadow passed out
and crumpled in an abandoned doorway. It's the crackhead we
saw mumbling himself into the nod-off zone. He's still
faintly singing a part of the bones song as the man passes.
He stops in the light.
And we see it's SHOTGUN: 20 years of fear and loathing etched
on his face. He freezes, listening for a second to the
crackheads wheezing mumbles - no - it's something else he's
listening for -- and hearing.
From behind him a low wheezy sound, like some huge panting
dog. He stops. And it stops. He walks on and it follows:
As he hurries to the next pool of light and safety, his ears
strain for the nearly silent padding and wheezing steadily
following.
Suddenly, he hears that panting closer and closer until it's
nearly right behind him. He starts running, though he hasn't
yet seen anything. Only heard the mongrel hot on his heels.
FOLLOW WITH SHOTGUN
As he stumbles, careens, and wheezes through the streets and
alleys, terrified. Winded, he eventually stops, his hand
trembling into his shopping bag, seeking a weapon.
And we see the building he's paused beside: Bones' place.
Pockmarked by age. Like the face of some furious old man.
Now he can almost feel the dog's breath on the back of his
neck...Shotgun spins, whipping a bottle of milk out of the
bag and hurling it into the darkness behind him.
The bottle smashes against the wall of Bones' building. For
a second, silhouetted against the now whited wall, the tall,
too tall, shape of the skinny black dog.
Without waiting to see what he hit, Shotgun takes off running
to reach his building across the street. The sound of the
dog's nails skittering across the street right behind him --
-- and he just makes it --
INT. SHOTGUN'S BUILDING - CONTINUOUS
Inside, safe, panting for breath. Then starts running up the
stairs...
EXT. SHOTGUN'S BUILDING - CONTINUOUS
From outside his third floor window, we see Shotgun run into
his apartment, slam down his groceries on the counter, grab
an old rifle from under his bed and hurry to his open window.
INT. SHOTGUN'S APARTMENT - CONTINUOUS
He scan/aims out his window across the street to the now
desolate building where Bones once lived. Finger on the
trigger, eyes scanning the shadows for the dog. Mumbling
quotations from the Bible about canines, some of which are
handwritten and taped up on his walls and mirrors:
SHOTGUN
"Thou shalt not bring a dog into the
house of the Lord thy God, for they are
an abomination." Deuteronomy.
Suddenly, something moving on the empty street catches his
eye.
HIS ANGLE ON
The Black Dog emerging from the shadows in the street. Our
first good look at the beast. Long clawed paws, all teeth
and tongue and a curved bony rib cage like it hasn't eaten in
20 years.
It's long black head seems almost to be throbbing, moving
from within, almost subliminally we see a weirder, demonic,
more skeletal dog face just beneath the black fur... Or is it
just the buzzing light from the vapor lamps?
SHOTGUN (CONT'D)
(as he aims his rifle)
"They return at evening: snarling like
dogs and prowling the city..." Psalms 59,
vs. 6...
The dog stands in the pool of light, offering a perfect shot.
Shotgun smiles, aims, and then fires, making --
EXT. BONES BUILDING - CONTINUOUS
-- a direct hit! But the dog doesn't move. Unfazed. The
bullet must have missed. Or else gone right through him.
The long-faced dog just looks up at Shotgun like it was
laughing at the fool. And has been for years.
Shotgun reaches for the spilled groceries on the counter.
Shoving aside bread and canned goods and other edible
necessitates, and finds a half-dozen boxes of rifle rounds.
He calmly reloads the rifle. And the sound of another shot
echoes in the night over...
EXT. AROUND THE CORNER - CONTINUOUS
Two frat boys, JASON and PALMER, driving a too nice car in a
too bad part of town. Palmer at the wheel while Jason makes
a call on the cellular.
PALMER
Great. Gun shots.
JASON
Just a backfire.
PALMER
Like you'd know. Face it. We're lost.
JASON
Take a left, no, I mean a right. Okay,
stop for a second.
They stop in the middle of a block. Jason on the phone.
JASON (CONT'D)
We're here. Where the hell are you?
STANK
(on phone)
Back here. At the end of the block.
He turns around and sees behind them, TWO GUYS standing on
the far corner. One's on the phone.
STANK (CONT'D)
(on phone)
You got the cash?
JASON
You got the shit?
STANK
(on the phone)
Yeah, but you got to come the rest of the
way on foot. Leave your car and walk
over here.
EXT. STREET - SAME
They exit the car, looking all around them with more than a
touch of paranoia.
As they walk nervously down the block, they join the two on
the corner. It's STANK and WEAZE, both 17.
JASON
Let me see it.
STANK
Let me see it.
JASON
(hands him the money)
Where is it?
STANK
I can't carry it in my pocket, man. And
I can't go get it for you cause you might
be a cop. You gonna have to pick it up
yourself.
Jason and Palmer aren't sure about this. By the sphincteral
look on his face, Palmer would rather forget about it.
STANK (CONT'D)
Don't worry. It's just round the corner.
Halfway down that block, you can't miss
it. Top step of the front stairs,
there's a loose stone. Go on, I ain't
shitting you.
JASON
Fuck it. Alright.
EXT. BLACKSTONE AVE. - CONTINUOUS
They walk around the corner and enter a bleak block with at
least half the lots burnt out.
PALMER
Is it too late for me to officially
register my growing certainty that this
is an extremely bad idea?
Farther down, in the center of one side of the street, stands
a particularly ominous abandoned building. Bones' building.
Jason ignites a Zippo, and they see one loose brick. Jason
pulls it out and behind it sees a glint of baggy.
JASON
Easy as pie. And twice as tasty.
He opens the bag. It's filled with rock cocaine.
ANGLE - ACROSS THE STREET
On the third floor, Shotgun sits in his straight-backed chair
in front of the open center window drinking coffee, cradling
his rifle on his lap. Sees the frat boys picking up their
shit. Then he looks out at Bone's 'tomb':
Dark blank windows staring back at him; the building's front
door covered with broken vertical boards with jagged pieces
missing, looking almost like a jack-o-lantern's grin.
Shotgun then looks back down at the boys below. From behind
them they hear their car alarm go off.
PALMER
Someone's screwing with the car!
But from the other way come cops, in a plain wrap car, a hand
reaching out and putting the spinning blue light on the roof.
No place to run. No place to hide for the boys. They reach
for the door of the shuttered building -- and it opens!
SHOTGUN
Yo. You two, get the hell away from
there!
But they ignore him and disappear into the darkness inside
the gaping maw of Bones' building.
Shotgun shakes his head sitting back down, cradling his
rifle.
SHOTGUN (CONT'D)
Fools.
INT. BONES' BUILDING - CONTINUOUS
Inside, the boys huddle in the darkness behind the door,
waiting for the cops to pass.
The boys look around the decayed Gothic interior lit only by
the eerie glow of the sodium vapor lights outside.
What we last saw as the ornate 70's luxury lobby in Bones'
day, is now a horror show.
Walls torn and stained. Mold grows in patches on the wall
and ceiling. Huge cobwebs hang. The furniture's all broken.
A gnawing tearing sound makes Palmer spin: a rat sticks its
head up through the rotted cushions of the couch.
PALMER
Let's get the hell outta here.
Jason shushes him as the room is filled with the flashing
blue light of the cop car trawling slowly down the street.
From inside they hear the sounds of a car door slamming and
cop shoes walking.
JASON
Oh fuck, c'mon...
He gropes his way in the darkness to a staircase. Palmer is
right behind him as they slip upstairs, deeper into the
gaping darkness of the abandoned building.
While below them the door opens and cop lights and cop voices
penetrate the gloom.
OLDER COP
...not going in there. Waste o' time.
YOUNGER COP
I saw 'em go in.
And from the boys' high vantage point up the stairs we see
the first cop walk in with flashlight drawn.
WHILE INSIDE THE COP CAR - CLOSE ANGLE
All we see are two meaty hands unwrapping a wax-paper covered
pork chop sandwich. The cop, face in shadow, brings the drip
ping sandwich up over his huge belly towards his face.
INSIDE BONES' BUILDING
The frat boys hold their breath while rats run across their
feet. Jason slamming his hand over Palmer's mouth to keep
him from screaming.
DOWN BELOW
The young plainsclothes cop steps deeper into the room, and
shines his flashlight at the stairwell.
UPSTAIRS
Jason pulls the reluctant Palmer further up the stairs, to
the third floor as below them they hear the cop coming up.
Jason pulls Palmer through the nearest door and into:
INT. JIMMY BONES' OLD PAD - CONTINUOUS
The rotted remains of what was once Jimmy Bones' master
bedroom. The room he was betrayed and slaughtered in.
DOWNSTAIRS
The cop begins to head up the stairs. Visible behind him,
down through the open front door, is the plain wrap car. The
older cop inside, mouth fulla sammich, loudly says:
FAT OLDER COP
Forget it! No way they're in there.
Trust me. I've been working down here
twenty years. No one goes in there.
FROM THE FAT OLDER COP'S POV
We watch as the younger cop returns to the car, giving up.
And when he climbs in, we reverse and reveal who the older
cop is: LUPOVICH, the cop who helped kill Bones.
But he's decayed and expanded into a Hank Quinlan-like
mountain of corrupt cop flesh. Too many pork chop
sandwiches.
LUPOVICH
Let's get the hell outta here.
INT. JIMMY'S OLD PAD - SAME
From upstairs, the boys see the blue light of the cop car
recede as the car pulls away down below.
Palmer reaches for the door. He wants out. But in the
darkness, he can't find the door.
PALMER
Gimme some light.
Behind Jason we see a shape, a shadow, a tall silhouette, a
man-shaped deeper darkness forming within the darkness.
Jason lights his lighter. And in the flickering we see
behind him that this room now contains a portion of hell:
It's not just the chipped paint and peeled rotted wall paper,
or the cracks and gaps in the broken old ceiling mirror.
All surfaces seem to be a swirling, shifting pattern in which
we can dimly and subliminally make out faces as if people
were trapped on the surface of things. Exactly like the
glimpse we had beneath the world when Jimmy died...
The floor, the walls, the furniture, everything in it -- made
out of the wracked and twisted devouring and devoured forms
of dead souls. Their faces, hollow pleading eyes and howling
mouths visible like flowing grain in wood.
And in the center of it all stands the dark silhouette of
Bones, impossibly tall and thin, stretching malevolently out
across the room like a living shadow.
But the boys don't see this as they're finding the door. We
see Bones shadow arching towards them while they fumble.
Palmer finally opens the door to the sound of a deep rumbling
growl from the darkness on the other side. And in the open
door stands the black dog.
They boys jump back. But breathes easy.
PALMER (CONT'D)
Just a dog...
And the black dog leaps up at them -- teeth flying right for
the boys' throats. And in the flickering ghastly light we
see its demon face breaking through.
The dog sinks his long teeth into Jason's arm. He flails and
drops his lighter, still lit, on the floor.
As soon as he does, the dog releases Jason, and disappears as
fast as it appeared, back into the darkness.
The two kids panic, Jason shaking and bleeding, looking
around, waiting for the dog or something else to attack,
seeing back through the doorway into the room from hell.
Behind them we see that tall man-shaped shadow. The Bones
shadow is oblivious to the two frantic boys, intent only on
the small flickering flame of the lighter still burning where
it fell against the lower wood paneling of the wall.
A thin trail of black smoke as the flame barely begins to
catch on the chipped lead-filled flammable paint.
THE BOYS RUN
And stumble down the hall away from the horror, while back in
the room the Bones-shadow watches as the lighter flickers and
dies out. Other than a slightly blackened spot, the wall is
unburned.
The black shadow shudders in rage, arches back and hooooowls
in frustration, its mouth abnormally large. The shadowy head
snaps in the direction of the boys -- ready to vent it's
wrath, and for a subliminal second we see in the head, the
hellish face of Jimmy Bones.
The boys round the second floor landing and fly down the last
flight of stairs.
Jason's foot breaks through a rotted floorboard and for a
second, it appears as though rotten hands are just below the
stairs, grabbing at his foot and leg.
He yelps in terror, pulling his foot back as they continue
towards the front door, the Bones-thing's woofer-busting howl
roaring down from the third floor.
THE SHEER INFINITE ADRENALINE RUSH
Of pure horror and the desperation to survive drags the boys
off the stairs as they tear across the floor and hurl
themselves out the front door into the night air... Jason
falling and lying on the stoop.
EXT. BONES' BUILDING - CONTINUOUS
Across the street, Shotgun sees the boys in the doorway.
Then, as a nearly dead vapor light suddenly flickers and
comes to life, the shadows created on Bones' building make it
look almost like a demonic face.
Gulping for air, laughing hysterically at their survival, the
frat boys pause. Jason sits back on his butt, checking his
wound. The doorway behind them just a black hole in space.
PALMER
(bumping fists together)
Damn, bro. That was close!
THEN SUDDENLY
Something - it happens so fast we're not sure just what grabs
sucks-pulls Palmer back into the black doorway hole.
Jason, still prone, tries to crawl away but whatever got his
friend now sucks him in too. His fingernails scraping along
the stoop in frenzied desperation.
WITH SHOTGUN
When he hears the boys pitiful screams and whimpers from
across the street, he leaps to his feet and tries to see into
the dark of the doorway across the street. But he can only
hear what is happening to the unlucky frat fellas:
Moans and the sound of flesh torn, and swallowed, and their
last dying screams.
UP AND DOWN THE BLOCK
The screaming reverberates. Faces appear in some windows.
While in others, shades are drawn and the lights go out...
BACK WITH SHOTGUN
Mumbling to himself:
SHOTGUN
"For outside are dogs and sorcerers..."
Revelation 22, vs. 15.
Tears welling in his eyes that he angrily flicks away.
LOOKING AT THE BUILDING
It still has the shadowy look/shape of Jimmy Bones, now
shifting again as the vapor light on the street sputters out
again, plunging the street into near darkness. The body of
Palmer no longer visible below.
When he looks back, the building seems just an old building
again. Then there's movement in an upper window, catching
his eye. Shotgun sees the tall, shadowy silhouette.
The figure is elongated, can't tell if it is a man, or the
distorted shadow of a man. It beckons to Shotgun.
SHOTGUN
Just tightens his grip on his rifle and speaks as if the
shadowy thing across the street could hear him.
SHOTGUN (CONT'D)
You still mad? Still want me? Come on
and get me.
THE SHADOW
Shakes its head. As if it can hear him. And again mutely
beckons to him.
ON SHOTGUN
SHOTGUN (CONT'D)
Oh, right. You can't. You're trapped
there. Well ain't that too bad. Ain't
that just too damn bad.
This portion of the screenplay is originally pages 1-2. It is presented
out of order to reflect the final film.
FADE IN:
EXT. SOUTH SIDE OF TOWN - 1979 - DAY
In the ghetto. A thriving street. Shops and apartments.
Storefronts, newsstands. Life in the hood.
A sleek black Buick Electra 'deuce and a quarter' floats down
the avenue, Curtis Mayfield-style...
INT. BUICK ELECTRA - DAY
Behind the fur-covered steering wheel: SHOTGUN, a broke-nosed
bodyguard for the man in the back seat:
JIMMY BONES - 28. His street. His world. Cool, handsome,
respected. Dressed very fly, but not excessive. Long black
coat, black silk shirt, and matching wide-brimmed hat.
His left hand sports a big diamond ring while his right hand
toys with a long silver razor, polished and oiled to
perfection so that the long glinting blade can swing back and
forth, or lock into position.
EXT. BLACKSTONE AVE. - DAY
Bones steps out from the car on to his street like a
benevolent feudal lord or a popular Mafia Don.
QUICK CUTS OF JIMMY:
-- greeting and soul shaking every man, woman and child on
the block: they display a mixture of fear/love and respect.
-- coolly taking down numbers in a notebook: soothing to the
losers, encouraging to the wary, tough with the welchers.
-- and handing out a rare win to an astonished old man
standing in his pajamas in the doorway of an old tenement.:
BONES
Don't spend it all in one place. Spread
it around. And shop local.
This portion of the screenplay is originally pages 13-14. It is presented
out of order to reflect the final film.
We see Pearl standing at the sink, scrubbing the blood stains
on her, washing her hands, washing and washing them...
CREDITS ROLL OVER:
Her hands, washing becomes time passing. Years, decades, the
building and the surroundings decay... And still the dark,
skinny dog prowls the shadows. Just one more reason we no
longer see anyone walk the street at night.
The 90's end --
And Bones' building stands worn and naked with burnt-out lots
on either side. And the street feels like a ghost town.
In the evil colored light of the gaseous street lights,
Bones' own shadow stretches and distorts across all three
stories. His shadow face filling a window. As in and around
the building and out in the ruins on either side, the black
dog still walks.
AND FINALLY RETURN TO WEATHERED HANDS STILL WASHING
THEMSELVES IN HOT WATER --
To the PRESENT.
Pull out and reveal Pearl, skin drawn, eyes heavy, now 20
years older, washing her hands. And then drying them.
CREDITS END
This portion of the screenplay is originally pages 26-31. It is presented
out of order to reflect the final film. This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not
appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the
integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited.
CLOSE ON:
INT. KRUSHED KLUB - NIGHT
Two raging black screaming skulls engulfed in eye-scorching
fluorescent green fire:
The decals on the front panel of a Gemini Executioner, a hi
tech mixer. Four hands at the controls. Throbbing, shifting
twisted beats. We're in a Northside dance club:
Pull out to reveal BILL, 20, and MAURICE, aka Space Cowboy
and Intergalactic Gangster of Love, 20. The two boys DJ-ing.
They're accompanied by the crooning voice and dancing body of
Bill's step-sister TIA, 29. Bill's black. Tia's white. And
Maurice is not of this earth.
Bill's turntablizing: his hands dance between two competition
style direct drive turntables tilted side by side, playing
them like an instrument.
While Maurice plays in and around and out of Bill's rhythm,
with his 6 top-loaded computerized CD players, the boys hand
the beat back and forth and up and down, building
outrageously, till Maurice tips it over the top.
MAURICE
Goodness gracious grande bolas del fuego!
The floor is jammed with underground dance scenesters,
college students and spaced-out shoegazers tripping on
Ketamine, dancing with their invisible friends.
The bar's surrounded by a sea of hands waving money,
demanding drinks. Our boys are popular. And the club is
making a lot of green tonight.
See someone checking out all the money, counting heads:
PATRICK, 23, Bill's older brother. The money man.
EXT. BACK ON THE SOUTH SIDE - NIGHT
Stank and Weaze are cruising around in the frat boys BMW,
laughing their asses off.
INT. THE KRUSHED KLUB - PRE-DAWN
Live show's over. And a chill mix tape plays while the boys
pack their gear. Across the club, Patrick's arguing with the
club owner, MOE. Just now handing Patrick a couple bills.
Patrick's not happy.
EXT. KRUSHED KLUB - CONTINUOUS
The guys and Tia stumble out with all their equipment,
loading it and themselves into Patrick's over-sized SUV.
Patrick right behind them. They gather around to split their
fee.
PATRICK
Well, the bad news is we only made 25
bucks each.
TIA
How could that be? The box was packed!
PATRICK
Moe's terms.
MAURICE
We practically paying him for the
privilege of playing his club.
BILL
So what the hell's the good news?
PATRICK
I just accelerated my top secret long
term plan for our world domination.
MAURICE
Sqweeep. We innerup this programme to
bring you this special news bulletin --
(human teletype sounds) "Aliens from
Reticula 3 have hijacked Patrick Peet and
injected moly headcheese into his skull
filling his entire brain cavity with
cosmic slop..."
PATRICK
I was planning on waiting until I got the
place cleaned out, but -- like the man
says, carpe diem.
Patrick hands Bill and Tia each a flyer:
The Restaurant Brothers
Ill Bill and DJ Maurice -- a.k.a. The Space Cowboy
Playing at Illibent. Fridays.
TIA
Illibent? Who's club is that?
PATRICK
Ours!
BILL
What're ya talkin' about, OURS?
Patrick beckons them into the car.
EXT. BLACKSTONE - DAY
Patrick pulls up to the abandoned lot next to Bones'
building. In broad daylight the building looks even
stranger. The lines don't matchup. Weeds and broken glass,
rusted autoparts, and empty abandoned shopping carts in
tangled heaps like ruins in the lot beside the building.
BILL
Looks like a damn graveyard round here.
PATRICK
I'm telling you, this neighborhood is
coming back.
MAURICE
Yeah. But just where the hell has it
been?
They step up to the front of the building.
BILL
Damn. That is the ugliest building I
have ever seen.
PATRICK
Naw. I think it's... I dunno. Something
about it just buzzes me.
MAURICE
That would be the after effects of that
Reticular inseminoid encounter you had.
Patrick opens the door and steps inside.
PATRICK
Welcome to the Ill Zone.
INT. THE BUILDING - CONTINUOUS
The darkness broken only by sunlight streaming through grimy
windows reveals the decaying interior of the building.
We can see now nothing's been moved since the late '70's.
Old furniture, carpets, pictures - late '70's Gothic.
TIA
Damn it's cold in here!
BILL
It's eighty degrees outside. And it's
gotta be barely fifty in here.
MAURICE
And damp, too. Let's not forget damp.
PATRICK
Whattaya think? Can you picture it?
Over there the bar, and in here -- the
dance floor.
BILL
Possible...maybe...could be.
Patrick leads them to the stairwell going up and down around
the old elevator cage/shaft.
PATRICK
I got a great deal on it. They couldn't
give this place away. Just dead meat
stanking up their books for twenty years.
They come to the elevator shaft, no elevator in sight.
PATRICK (CONT'D)
The last owner on the lease before the
bank was back in '79. Some dude named
Jimmy Bones. Empty ever since.
Maurice looks down the elevator shaft and gets immediately
dizzy, almost plunging to his doom - pulled back by Bill.
MAURICE
Jimmy Bones?
PATRICK
Yeah, you heard of him?
MAURICE
You haven't?
PATRICK
Not that I remember.
MAURICE
He was a local legend back in the '70's.
There was a song, Stagolee kinda deal:
"This is the ballad of Jimmy Bones/Black
as night and hard as stone..."
PATRICK
I was born near here. My dad's from
here. He never mentioned it.
BILL
Bones! How baddass is zat? This is the
place for us. Patrick, you get platinum
props, man. Platinum.
MAURICE
Yeah, in the land of the blind the one
eye'd are king.
BILL
What's your problem with Crippled Dick?
MAURICE
Look around, this place is a dump! Naw,
it'd have to work to be a dump.
PATRICK
You gotta use your imagination.
MAURICE
"This is Patrick..."
(makes the sound of egg
cracking, the sizzling as it
lands in the skillet)
"...And this is Patrick on crack."
Imagination, my butt. Even the space
cowboy can't...
PATRICK
(interrupting)
Why don't y'all check out the rest? I'm
going downstairs and see if I can get the
furnace fired up. Warm this place up,
you'll see. It has serious potential.
MAURICE
Potential toxic dump site.
INT. STAIRS - CONTINUOUS
Mia, Bill and Maurice all climb the stairs as Maurice lights
a joint with a little box of stick matches.
BILL
Are you nuts?
MAURICE
The man said just to use my imagination.
(takes a huge hit)
Let's see...yeah, I get it. Potential.
I can see it now. The first major urban
theme park. Village Ghetto land.
Kinda like Legoland, but made entirely
from broken glass, hypodermic needles and
crack vials. Totally E-ticket.
BILL
Keep smokin', fool.
Tia checks out the second floor while Bill and Maurice
continue up the stairs to the third floor. Bones' old crib.
WITH BILL AND MAURICE
Behind them, barely subliminal glimpse - a manshaped darker
shadow within a shadow. Bill feels a cold wind from nowhere.
And hears a whispery sound seemingly carried in the breeze.
HOLLOW ECHOES
It ain't eh money. It's the big fat
floating what if...
BILL
What did you say?
MAURICE
I didn't say nothing.
HOLLOW ECHOES
Take him down to the storm clear. Bury
him.
BILL
You didn't hear that? "Take him... "
Something. "Bury him" or...
MAURICE
Take who where? What you smokin'?
BELOW ON THE SECOND FLOOR
Tia's checking out a bedroom. Hears a light tinkling in a
closet. She opens it: empty except a row of rusty metal
hangers, holding the moldy remains of Bones old suits.
DOWNSTAIRS IN THE BASEMENT - PATRICK
Is there a flashlight, poking around. Trying to find the
metal knob to turn on the gas. Eerie as hell down there.
Out of the corner of our eyes we see a shadow moving,
looming. A scurrying sound and Patrick turns his flashlight
in the other direction: we glimpse a bloated rat.
Behind him, the shadow we glimpsed grows, elongates. Patrick
notes another door. This one padlocked. Sensing someone or
something behind him, Patrick turns with the flashlight.
Nothing there. But the Bones-shadow is behind him again.
Again he feels something and again he turns the flashlight
around: nothing.
Except the Bones-shadow is again...behind him.
Shaking it off, Patrick heads for the old heater, pulling out
matches to light the pilot as Bones-shadow stays behind him.
BONES POV
Bones watches as Patrick reaches around the gas heater. When
Patrick strikes a match head, the Bones-shadow moves even
closer to him as Patrick reaches in and lights the pilot.
When Patrick steps back, Bones-shadow grows and stretches,
spreading like an ink stain, reaching across to where the
pilot flame flickers.
In profile, the shadow-mouth blows...but no breath comes out.
The flame doesn't even flicker.
Bones tilts his head back and lets loose an eerie bellow of
frustration in a subliminal flash we see a howling mouth,
bigger than any human mouth, howling within the shadow-face.
The sound echoes all through the basement rooms as Patrick
walks back upstairs. He slaps a nearby plumbing pipe.
PATRICK
Go on old pipes, groan all you like.
Just please don't burst. That I can't
afford.
FOLLOW WITH BONES POV
As disappointed in whatever he hoped blowing out the furnace
pilot would do, he steps into the rusted remains of the old
elevator and the POV begins to levitate.
INT. ELEVATOR - CONTINUOUS
Bones' POV rises straight up as if still in a working
elevator. It rises and we follow up from the basement to the
empty first floor, past the second floor to:
THE THIRD FLOOR
Where we're still inside, floating in the elevator cage.
Then the POV moves through the metal bars and floats towards
Bill, who's approaching the door of the room where Jimmy
died.
As Bill reaches to open it, Bones' POV floats closer - and
closer - right up on Bill's back now. Bill feeling the hairs
on his neck suddenly rising. Then he hears:
HOLLOW ECHOES
Go on. It won't kill you.
Bill turns around to check with Maurice.
BILL
You had to hear tha...
But Maurice is gone. And he doesn't see the shadow there
behind him. Bill leans in to the door, listening...
HOLLOW ECHOES
I ain't gonna be the only one with this
nigger's blood on my hands...
BILL
What the f--?
A hand jolts him from behind. He spins -- it's just Maurice.
MAURICE
'S up?
BILL
Nothing. Contact paranoia. Must be
buggin' from hanging with you.
They turn to walk back down. Maurice stops to re-light his
joint when the Bones-shadow reaches out to grab his wrist.
But it's no good. The shadow hand passes right through,
Maurice pauses for an instant as if he felt something.
Maurice lights his roach, and the match burns closer and
closer to his fingertips. Then singes them and he drops the
match. Maurice then heads downstairs after Bill.
The shadow remains behind, staring at the still burning match
on the wooden floor. He bends down, staring intently as if
willing it to burn, his hands urging it on, the flame
suddenly rising. But then the match sputters harmlessly out.
The shadow turns back towards the boys downstairs.
WHILE ON THE SECOND FLOOR
Tia explores the rest of the floor. Hears a sound, like a
whimpering, from behind another door.
She slowly eases open the door then jumps back -- Inside, the
dog. It growls low and mean, the black fur on the back of
it's neck rising. It's eyes burning too red and bright.
Tia freezes.
The dog growls deeply at her. And as he does we see the
Bones shadow rising behind her. It seems to lean in and over
her, and the dog stops growling.
Tia cautiously holds her hand outstretched with the burger
for the dog to smell.
Bones' shadow from lingers behind her, perhaps simply
enjoying the first sight in hellish eons of a beautiful girl.
TIA
How'd you get locked in here? And for
how long? Poor baby...
The dog leaps up - but not to rip her throat out. Instead it
snatches the burger and wolfs it down in one gulp.
TIA (CONT'D)
Poor boy. You must be starving.
INT. FIRST FLOOR - CONTINUOUS
Bill looks skeptical, Maurice outraged. Patrick firm.
BILL
You want us to move in here?
PATRICK
That's the only way we'll get the place
fixed up in time.
MAURICE
Yeah right, and which ever of us is still
alive at the end of the week inherits all
Vincent Price's cash.
PATRICK
Look, you guys want to play college
radio, high school reunions, and some
fool's club once a week for the rest of
your lives, that's cool. But I think we
can do better.
BILL
You soundin' like the old man now.
PATRICK
I believe in you guys. You are the real
shit. And you know it. Now I'm putting
everything I got into this cuz I think we
can make it happen, but you gotta put a
little in too. Now all I"m asking is
that everybody do their part. We'll move
some shit in, and take shifts, or all
crash together here --
BILL
Pat's right. It'll be fun.
MAURICE
Yeah, fine. But Mars Needs Women. If I
gotta sleep in a spookhouse, surround me
with chicks who are more scared than me.
Speaking of which...
Tia's coming down the stairs. Maurice watching her legs
appreciatively as she descends.
BILL
(rips Maurice's skull)
Tia ain't a chick. She's family. And
don't forget it.
PATRICK
Let's get going. Go home, pick up what
we need, then crash here.
TIA
Look who I found.
She comes in with the dog padding silently behind her.
MAURICE
Damn, that's the nastiest dog I ever
seen. Nothin' but skin and bones.
TIA
Yeah, call his skinny ass "Bones."
"Bones" grins, all teeth with its tongue hanging out. They
walk out the front door, the dog slipping out with them.
EXT. BLACKSTONE - ACROSS THE STREET - CONTINUOUS
Shotgun watches from the window as the group exits the
building with the dog. Seeing the cur he instinctively
reaches for his gun. But the dog's surrounded by kids.
SHOTGUN
Hey, watcha doing with that dog?
BILL
He yours, sir?
SHOTGUN
Hell no!
BILL
Then what do you care?
SHOTGUN
Take my advice. And shoot that dog. Or
let me.
BILL
Alright. Yes sir. Anything you say.
Tia, Bill and Bones the dog pile into the van as Pearl and
her daughter CINNABAR, 21, walk by.
The daughter's as fine now as her mother was then. Pearl
sees the dog in the van and her head snaps to the gang.
PEARL
Don't feed that dog.
BILL
You people really don't like dogs.
PEARL
Some holes can't be filled. Some hungers
can't be satisfied.
MAURICE
(way under his breath)
And some people need their medication
tweaked.
PEARL
I'm not joking boy. Don't feed it.
It'll only make it hungrier.
Pearl walks a little faster, trying to draw Cinnabar away
from the kids and the dog.
But Cinnabar lingers a few paces behind her mother and
catches Patrick's eye. He's stunned, and before he can
speak, Maurice speaks for him.
MAURICE
Need any help with those bags, Ma'am?
PEARL
No thanks.
PATRICK
no really, let us help. We're new in the
neighborhood, gonna be neighbors.
CINNABAR
You moved into this block?
MAURICE
Not really to live, just to play.
PEARL
That building?
MAURICE
Gonna be le hot shit.
(to Pearl)
Pardon my Francais. Dance club. The
Resurrection Brothers play there. Heard
of them?
PEARL
Should I?
CINNABAR
Are they on the radio?
PATRICK
Naw. But they will be. They're the
best.
CINNABAR
How do you know?
PATRICK
I manage them.
PEARL
And you bought the building?
Pearl studies their faces, especially Patrick's.
PEARL (CONT'D)
You look mighty familiar to me. You sure
you're not from around here?
PATRICK
I was born near here. But after my
mother died, my dad moved. I grew up out
in Rossmore Park.
PEARL
You're pretty black to be growing up in
Rossmore Park.
EXT. PEARL'S STOREFRONT - DAY
They stop in front of a storefront - same old palm reading
sign. But the name is different. Now it's "SISTER PEARL -
READER AND ADVISOR." Pearl enters the building while a
lingering Cinnabar catches a look on Patrick's face.
CINNABAR
Guess it's not Rossmore Park. Thanks for
the help.
PATRICK
Anytime. Be seeing you.
Patrick is still checking her out. And we can see from a
window, Pearl is still checking him out. While Maurice is
checking out the wacky window design.
MAURICE
Yeah, well if she got psychic powers, how
come she's working here on Desolation
Row?
EXT. BLACK CAT POOL CLUB - DAY
A run-down storefront, fronted by a crude faux-Parisian Black
Cat Facade. A "private club", the local boss' HQ.
INT. BLACK CAT CLUB - CONTINUOUS
Inside, the lights are dim and clouds of cigarettes and cigar
smoke float over worn out old pool tables.
Most of the tables are empty. An older man wearing
sunglasses lines up a careful shot on a corner table. It's
Eddie Mack. 20 years after doing Bones, he rules the hood.
What's left of it, anyway.
Before he can shoot, Stank and Weaze breeze in, Stank holding
some car keys up in his hand.
STANK
Say Eddie.
Distracted, Eddie hits the eightball and scratches. He snaps
the pool cue over his knee.
MACK
Goddamnit! How many times I told you --
STANK
We got a gift for you, Eddie. Fresh new
BMW.
MACK
That you stole off those white boys was
down here last night? Are you crazy?
Everybody from hell to breakfast heard
that screamin' on Blackstone last night!
STANK
But --
MACK
How many times I told you, no psycho
shit. There gonna be psycho shit, I'm
the one that does it.
WEAZE
We didn't do nothing, Eddie.
MACK
You gon tell me you didn't ginsu those
punks and steal their ride?
WEAZE
That's all we did, steal their ride.
MACK
Get that car the hell away from here,
now! I spend a lot of money to keep the
cops cool. But this is the kinda shit
that pisses everybody off.
STANK
We just thought...
MACK
No more thoughts from your asses. Or I
will burn your asses and snort the ashes.
Hear me?
EXT. ROSSMORE PARK - EVENING
The guarded entrance to the gated community. Bill and the
others roll up to the gate in their van.
Barney Fife pokes his head in the window and stares at 'em
suspiciously. They all "smile" back.
GUARD
Okay, go on ahead.
BILL
I been living here my whole life, and
that hillbilly still has to check me out
each time.
MAURICE
Hey, it's his job. Keeping indesirables
outta the hood.
EXT. THE PEET HOUSE - CONTINUOUS
They pull into the huge multi-car driveway in front of their
house. Not quite a mansion, but damn close.
INT. KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS
The kids are all sitting around the kitchen, watching Tia fix
some meaty concoction to feed the dog. The dog stares at her
expectantly. Jaws dripping in anticipation.
An older, distinguished looking black man walks in.
PATRICK
Hey, Dad.
And we see their father is... Jeremiah. Though now a
prosperous banker, twenty years ago he was the man who set
Bones up. He enters with NANCY, his white second wife, Tia's
mother.
JEREMIAH
Not only do I have to feed the three
mouths I got, and that bottomless pit
they call Maurice, I gotta feed this
stray, too?
At the sound of Jeremiah's voice, the dog looks up right at
him and unleashes a low, rumbling growl.
TIA
Shhh, Bones. It's not nice to bite the
hand that feeds you.
JEREMIAH
What did you call that dog?
NANCY
(moving on)
Just what are you feeding him? I didn't
know we had dog food.
TIA
We don't. I used that meat you had in
the bowl.
NANCY
Tia, that was the prime rib I was
marinating for dinner.
They look at the dog eating enough beef to feed six people.
This portion of the screenplay is originally pages 1-4. It is presented
out of order to reflect the final film.
EXT. FURTHER DOWN THE BLOCK - TIME CUT
Bones is back in the car. Shotgun rolling on down the street
and round the corner.
Bones sees a young black man leaning into the window of a
police car. It's JEREMIAH PEET, Bones' right-hand man,
trying to do business. And make sure his three year old son
keeps from running into the street. The cop in the car
eating a sloppy sauce-drippin' pork chop sandwich, watches.
BONES
Hold up S-G. Give him a toot.
Jeremiah speaking low and rapid to the cop who says nothing,
just wipes his greasy lips on a handkerchief.
Then Shotgun hits the car horn, which plays a James Brown
style trumpet riff. Jeremiah steps over to Jimmy's car.
Jeremiah's son cautiously following.
JEREMIAH
'Sup Jimmy B. Shotgun.
(to his son)
Get back on the curb! Now!
BONES
Go easy on Jay Bird. I can remember when
we was his age...
The boy makes eye contact with Bones, who motions he's got a
dollar for him. The boy nervously takes it from Bones and
then runs back to the curb under his father's harsh eye.
JEREMIAH
It's all arranged for tonight. Eddie
Mack's gonna be there. And Offisa
Korruptsky, too.
BONES
They get about twelve and a half minutes.
Tops.
JEREMIAH
Trust me, Jimmy, there's big money behind
this. Not just big. BIG. Like big
business big. Big corporation big. Big
government big. Our little acre alone'll
net hundreds a thousands. Nothing but
net.
BONES
Nothing but net? Could be a swish. Or a
muthafucking air ball.
JEREMIAH
One simple word, three little letters.
Yes. That's all it's gonna take and we
could move out of this dump, get the real
deal. Big houses, legit business...
BONES
That's your dream, Homes. Not mine. I
don't want to leave this street. Ever.
The status quo is totally cool with me.
PEARL
Maybe I oughtta get there a little early.
For good luck.
BONES
Don't need luck tonight. I'm just
letting 'em have their say before I say
no.
PEARL
(worried)
Let me see your hand.
BONES
All that shinin' and "reader and adviser"
mess. That was your mama's bag. I don't
know about the readin' but you both can
sure 'nuff advise.
PEARL
(swats his hand)
My mama's bag and my granma's bag, and a
long line of mamas before her.
BONES
Sounds like mama needs a brand new bag.
She takes his hand in hers.
PEARL
Such fine hands. You shoulda been a
musician. You got the fingers.
She strokes his hands.
PEARL (CONT'D)
Left hand's the past. Your right's the
present. And the future. But it's not
written in stone. It's written in flesh
and blood. And flesh and blood will
change. See? There's something here, a
new line, right across your life line.
BONES
Must be my clothes line. No? How bout
my phone line?
PEARL
No baby. I'm serious. Cancel that
meeting. I got more fruit that needs
checking. Come home with me now.
BONES
Don't you worry about a thing. This
hand's gonna be stroking the back of your
neck tonight.
The car pulls away, the little boy waves good-bye...
JEREMIAH
(under his breath)
'Cause you got all the status. And I got
nothing but quo...
This portion of the screenplay is originally pages 48-49. It is presented
out of order to reflect the final film.
EXT. BLACK CAT POOL CLUB - NIGHT
A cop car pulls up. Out the passenger side come two skinny
legs, followed by a bowling ball gut. Lupovich...
LUPOVICH
(to the cop in the car)
Wait here. And don't touch my fucking
sandwich.
INT. BLACK CAT POOL CLUB - CONTINUOUS
Lupovich makes his entrance and bellies across the club
towards Mack.
LUPOVICH
Not your style. Is it Eddie? Killing
off your customers?
MACK
I ain't killed nobody.
(gives a menacing glance to
Stank and Weaze)
Shall I rack 'em? Play a game, Lupe?
LUPOVICH
No time for eightball. I got your tip.
He tosses a bag of crack rocks on the pool table.
LUPOVICH (CONT'D)
Confiscated their whole stash.
Mack hands him a wad of cash.
LUPOVICH (CONT'D)
Fair enough for the shit. But I think a
little bonus is due for knocking out the
competition.
MACK
You was just doing your job.
LUPOVICH
Last thing you need's for me to start
doing my fucking job.
Mack hands him another wad of Bills.
LUPOVICH (CONT'D)
That's more like it. Cost of doing
business. Maybe you can deduct it on
your taxes.
INT. JEREMIAH'S HOUSE - NIGHT
Patrick talking to the others, Jeremiah asleep by now.
PATRICK
When we got a line of hundred paying
guests and another couple hundred inside
dancing, that's when I'll tell him. And
I can't wait to see the look on his face.
INT. THE PEET DINING ROOM - LATER
Around the table, Chinese food containers. Tia's still
sneaking meat to the dog under the table. The TV on in the
corner.
Jeremiah's topping off his dinner with XANTAC -- high blood
pressure medicine. His normal dyspeptic mood not improved by
the conversation the kids are having.
PATRICK
And how do you think crack got into the
ghetto? By magic? Who flew it in? Like
the man said "we don't own that many
planes."
Jeremiah increasingly uncomfortable with the subject matter.
JEREMIAH
Don't poison your mind with that ghetto
paranoia. That's all just ways of people
justifying their own failure.
BILL
Dad, the man has been lying to us for a
hundred years. I mean, where is my forty
acres and a mule?
JEREMIAH
You wouldn't know a mule if it bit you in
the ass.
And personally, I don't need a mule. I
got a Lexus. And nobody gave it to me --
TV ANCHOR
(on TV)
There's a lead tonight in the strange
disappearance of those two State College
fraternity brothers. There car, a 1999
BMW, was found abandoned this afternoon
in an inner-city neighborhood.
ON TV
We see flashes on the news of various streets of the hood,
including a shot of Bones block and building.
This portion of the screenplay is originally pages 61-64. It is presented
out of order to reflect the final film.
INT. SOUTH SIDE SAVINGS AND LOAN - DAY
Jeremiah swears a painted smile on his face as he shakes the
just entered Lupovich's hand. They seem, for all the world,
like old friends as he leads him back to his office.
INT. JEREMIAH'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS
But the minute they are in his office, Jeremiah's friendly
demeanor drops like a mask.
JEREMIAH
What the hell do you want?
LUPOVICH
Just a visit with my old pal, Jay-bird.
JEREMIAH
Don't call me that.
Lupovich looks around the expansive office and paws the
photos and knicknacks on Jeremiah's desk.
LUPOVICH
You certainly traded up.
(picks up a wedding picture
nearby)
...the trophy wife. Nice lookin'.
JEREMIAH
Keep your hands to yourself, willya?
LUPOVICH
I been watching you. You done good.
Invested wisely. Respectable businessman
now. Just like you always wanted.
JEREMIAH
And you? Still a pig. Just a much
fatter one.
LUPOVICH
No reason to get nasty. Yeah, I've
stayed in the organization. But then
again I never got the percentage you did.
JEREMIAH
Or you didn't know what to do with it.
LUPOVICH
Maybe so. Maybe so. But that ain't why
I came to see you. You sold the
building.
JEREMIAH
What building?
LUPOVICH
Don't shit a shitter. Our building.
What did you call it? His 'tomb'? We
had an agreement. You were supposed to
sit on it. Not sell it --
JEREMIAH
I didn't sell it.
LUPOVICH
Well, somebody bought it. That's what I
heard.
Jeremiah buzzes.
JEREMIAH
Claire? Could you come in here.
An assistant manager, CLAIRE, enters.
JEREMIAH (CONT'D)
Did we sell any properties on...
Blackstone recently?
CLA
Matter of fact, we did. 5606.
JEREMIAH
To who?
CLA
I only met with the broker. The
structure was listed almost worthless and
had never even had a bid, I thought you'd
be pleased to see it sold to someone who
wants to improve the neighborhood.
Anything wrong?
JEREMIAH
No, of course not. Good work. Thanks a
lot.
She leaves. Lupovich is still holding the picture of
Jeremiah's wife.
JEREMIAH (CONT'D)
You're right. One of my associates sold
the building last month.
LUPOVICH
That's a Bozo no-no. Jay-bird.
JEREMIAH
Look, even if anyone found anything
there, it's twenty years ago. They could
never connect it to us.
LUPOVICH
You better hope not. Cause it's like
they say, four can keep a secret, if
three are dead.
He puts down the photo with a wink.
LUPOVICH (CONT'D)
Nice rack. How old is --
JEREMIAH
That's it. Get out. Now!
Jeremiah advancing on Lupovich, who chuckles and walks out.
BILL
Hey, that's...
He's stopped by a kick under the table from Patrick.
JEREMIAH
That's what?
BILL
That's some terrible shit.
JEREMIAH
Clean your mouth, or I will. Those boys
had no business messing down there. Go
places you're not meant to be -- that's
what you get.
BILL
But that's your old hood, Pops.
JEREMIAH
Yeah, and it took some doing to get out
of there. Just be glad I did and you can
start life from here instead of down
there.
PATRICK
But maybe we're the ones who should be
down there. Doing something. Making it
better.
JEREMIAH
Can't be done. That place already died
and gone to hell.
This portion of the screenplay is originally pages 52-54. It is presented
out of order to reflect the final film.
SERIES OF ANGLES - A MONTAGE
Quick cuts of the moon, the sun, Bones neighborhood, Patrick
and the gang cleaning up the building. And finally, at
dusk...
EXT. BONES' BUILDING - MORNING
Patrick's on a ladder replacing glass in the upper windows.
From down the block, we see Cinnabar heading out of her
mother's house, holding her portfolio. The corners of papers
sticking out, splashes of color visible.
Patrick sees Cinnabar about to walk beneath his ladder.
PATRICK
Careful. That's bad luck.
CINNABAR
That place is already bad luck.
PATRICK
Why?
CINNABAR
No. It goes way back. Or so my Momma
says.
PATRICK
What else does she say?
CINNABAR
Nothing. You'd think she was crazy. And
she is a lot of things, not all of them
nice, but crazy Momma's not.
PATRICK
Way I figure, everything our parents tell
us is part true and part total B.S. And
our whole job is figuring out for
ourselves which is which.
CINNABAR
My momma says every house is two houses.
Every street, two streets. There's a
whole city, a whole world, kinda beside,
on top, just below this one. The city of
the dead.
PATRICK
Like right now, there's actually like
hordes of dead people shambling around
us? Fingers rotting off?
CINNABAR
Maybe. But there's an invisible wall, a
fabric that kinda keeps things separate.
PATRICK
Lucky thing.
CINNABAR
Yeah. But when something bad happens,
something really bad -- the wall breaks.
The fabric tears.
PATRICK
The dead get out?
CINNABAR
Or the living fall in. Who knows.
PATRICK
And you believe her?
CINNABAR
If I did, I wouldn't come within fifty
yards of your door.
She sees her bus pulling up at the corner and runs for it,
leaving only her smile with Patrick.
She passes Maurice and Bill, pulling up. Bill has to pull
Maurice's dog like attention away from the way Cinnabar's
bottom moves as she walks down the street to focus at the
matter at hand: unloading their shitload of equipment.
This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not
appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the
integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited.
EXT. BLACKSTONE - LATER
Maurice and Bill carrying speakers and racks and lights and
turntables while Shotgun, in his lawn chair across the
street, glares at them.
After the last equipment is loaded, they lock the car.
Shotgun still watching. Bill pulls out a six pack of beer.
He offers one to Shotgun who, after a beat, accepts it.
Maurice surreptitiously turns on his small hi-7 camera.
Holding it under his arm, but it's on.
MAURICE
You ever hear of Jimmy Bones, sir?
SHOTGUN
What business is it of yours?
MAURICE
Just wondered. We heard he used to live
in our building.
Shotgun says nothing.
BILL
Is it true?
SHOTGUN
Yeah. He lived there. And died there,
too.
BILL
Died there? How?
SHOTGUN
How the hell should I know?
MAURICE
What was he like?
SHOTGUN
Bones? He was something. He could be
cold as ice or warm as blood. But he
never turned his back for a brother.
His eyes drift up to the building.
SHOTGUN (CONT'D)
Always there.
Maurice goes in. Bill lingers behind.
SHOTGUN (CONT'D)
Hey, kid.
BILL
Yeah?
SHOTGUN
Take my advice. Get the hell out of
there. It's a bad place. Always has
been.
EXT. BLACKSTONE AVE. - DAY
Bill and Maurice walk around interviewing folks about Bones.
Bill with the DAT recorder, Maurice with the vidcam.
We see this through Maurice's shaky video camera:
grainy VIDEO SHOTS:
An OLD WOMAN.
OLD WOMAN
...and every Tuesday, he'd roll by in his
car and drive me with all my laundry to
the laundromat so I wouldn't have to
carry the clothes.
-- a dude in a wheel chair. Drinking outta paperbagged
bottle with a wino hanging on the corner.
WHEELCHAIR MAN
Jimmy Bones? Yeah, I knew that
motherfucker. People make out like he
was some kinda damn Robin Hood.
Bullshit. I saw him cut some muhfucker's
tongue once with that razor of
his...dropped it right into that jar of
dill pickles they used to have on the
counter in the bar.
WINO
When I was a kid he used to slip twenties
into my pocket so I could buy toys and
shit.
(now to Maurice/at camera)
Bones was awrright. He was solid. And
then one day, he just wasn't around no
more. Don't pay to ask too many
questions 'round here.
INT. THE BUILDING - THAT NIGHT
Upstairs, inside what was once Bones' bedroom. Beneath the
cracked ceiling mirror, Bill lies on the airmattress. He's
listening with headphones to a minidisk player.
Eyes closed, head nodding to the beat. Around him, we see
something strange. The room shifts.
It's the same room. But changed. It looks like it did when
the frat boys were trapped in here. Or in the instant after
Jimmy's death: all surfaces seem to be a swirling, shifting
pattern in which we can dimly make out faces, as if people
were trapped on the surface of things.
Then the faces and bodies begin to step out of their surfaces
and into the room.
So as Bill, eyes still closed, rocks to the hypnotic beats in
his headphones, we see the room around him begin to fill with
figures.
-- all twisted dead human forms emerging out of the surfaces
of floor and walls. We hear a low murmur of ghost voices,
different languages.
And as the track ends, the sound cuts through Bill's
headphones and his eyes snap open.
But the room is empty. And completely normal. Bill pulls
off his head phones. Ears strain to listen.
BILL
Tia? Patrick? That you?
The sounds return, fainter, and form above. Bill looks up,
and for a fraction of a second in the mirror, Bill sees the
crowded eerie hell of the other version of the room.
Bill jolts out of bed and to the door, whips it open, and
someone dark looms right there. But it's just Patrick.
BILL (CONT'D)
Shit.
PATRICK
Spooked?
Bill looks back into the room, normal now. Glances up at the
mirror, just a cracked reflection of the empty room.
BILL
No. Well, yeah. Maybe just a little.
PATRICK
Yeah, there is a strange vibe here.
He stops. Both brothers look at each other, waiting for the
other to admit he's seen or felt something's here.
BILL
Where's the others?
PATRICK
Maurice left. Tia's taking a bath.
INT. BATHROOM - CONTINUOUS
The bathroom is entirely wood lined, like some '70's hot tub
paradise. The room dominated by a large two person tub.
Tia lights four small scented candles on the counter. The
wind through the open window blows the curtains. She shuts
the window and then steps gingerly into the steaming bathtub.
She lies down in the bath, with her back to the door. The
four candles throwing varying shadows of her.
Then one of the shadows becomes...the shadow of Bones. All
it's attention is focused on one lit candle. The one closest
to the curtain.
Slowly the Bones' shadow's fingers start to caress the
curtain to make it move, ever so slowly, closer and closer to
the candle. The drapery reaches out, straining, straining
towards the candle flame.
Tia soaks with her eyes closed, enjoying the moist heat.
Bones' shadow fingers more and more urgently drawing the
flame towards the curtain, the curtain towards the flame.
And soon the corner of the drape just reaches the little
flickering flame. And in an instant the drape is on fire.
INT. HALLWAY - CONTINUOUS
Patrick and Bill still talking in front of the bedroom, down
the hall from the bathroom.
PATRICK
...we just been in the damn suburbs too
long.
Their conversation interrupted by screams from down the
hall... from the bathroom!
INT. BATHROOM - CONTINUOUS
The drapes are fully ablaze now, flames lick at the wooden
walls. Tia leaps out of the tub, screaming, trying to throw
bathwater at the burning drapes.
Patrick and Bill crash through the door. Patrick rips the
drapes from the wall and throws them into the bathtub.
INT. LIVING ROOM - LATER
Tia shivers in her bathrobe. Bill and Patrick with her.
TIA
There wasn't any draft. That window was
closed.
PATRICK
We're all tired. Everybody makes
mistakes. Tomorrow in the daylight,
everything's gonna look different.
INT. BUILDING - DAY
Ladders, drop-cloths and the beginnings of new paint on the
old torn walls. They're all eating take out burgers.
PATRICK
I thought you were bringing the Colonel?
MAURICE
The Gangster of Love don't eat no fried
chicken.
PATRICK
Why not? He eats everything else.
MAURICE
Just what army do you think the Colonel
was in?
(whistles Dixie)
Everybody knows the whole chicken
distribution network is owned by the
Klan. "Special recipe". I'm telling
you. There's something in the batter.
Say it makes a black man sterile.
BILL AND TIA
Bull. Shit.
MAURICE
Word. I saw it on Sixty Minutes.
PATRICK
Maurice, even if it was true, what are
you worried about? Last time I checked,
you weren't black. I'm not sure what the
hell you are. But I know you aren't a
black man.
MAURICE
I am the future. I am all colors. All
races. All creeds. I am the melting
pot. I am the tossed salad. I am post
racial.
PATRICK
Post-toasted's more like it.
This portion of the screenplay is originally pages 44-46. It is presented
out of order to reflect the final film.
EXT. SOUTH SIDE - CONTINUOUS
Outside, angle on Bones' building down the block.
CLOSER
To the building - we can hear sounds coming from inside the
house. Like dim drums, some kind of rhythm.
INT. SUBURBAN KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS
Where the dog eats and eats...
EXT. BONES' BUILDING - CONTINUOUS
Even CLOSER. The sound is a little louder, a little more
disturbing.
INT. KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS
Where the dog eats and eats.
EXT. BONES' BUILDING - CONTINUOUS
Standing now right in front of it we hear a rhythmic
cacophony from inside, growing louder as the dog eats and we:
INT. BONES' BUILDING - CONTINUOUS
The sound is deafening. It's the sound of every door in the
empty house swinging maniacally on its hinges. Beating the
air like wings. Opening and slamming shut again and again.
Every door except ONE DOOR. The padlocked door to the sub
basement.
EXT. PEARL'S STOREFRONT - CONTINUOUS
Some older folks, one very old man with a cane, two old black
women, arms linked. A middle-aged husband and wife. All
enter.
INT. PEARL'S PARLOR - CONTINUOUS
Dim light. Cloth covered table. Everything set for a
seance.
PEARL
Welcome, brother. Welcome, sisters.
Make yourselves comfortable around the
circle. We'll begin in a minute.
She walks upstairs to Cinnabar's room.
INT. CINNABAR'S ROOM - CONTINUOUS
She enters the room where Cinnabar is drawing a still-life
assignment by a window overlooking the fire-escape.
PEARL
Aren't you going to join us?
CINNABAR
I have to finish this for class.
PEARL
You got a vision, girl. Just like I got.
Just like my momma had. And the good
Lord didn't give you that vision just for
painting pretty pictures. That's just
wasted time.
CINNABAR
You mean as opposed to your life?
She regrets it halfway out her mouth. And a thousand-fold
more when she sees the look on her mother's face.
CINNABAR (CONT'D)
I'm sorry, Momma. Maybe next time.
PEARL
I don't want you meeting around that
house. You stay away from those kids.
And away from that dog.
CINNABAR
They seemed alright. Bring a little life
to that old building.
PEARL
Nothing but a wide world o' pain locked
in there.
CINNABAR
Have you ever been inside?
PEARL
Maybe once upon a time. But that was
long ago. Back before... before it
became what it is.
CINNABAR
And what's that?
PEARL
Just a bad place. And the doorway to
worse.
Cinnabar, as far too often, not understanding much of what
her mother says to her.
This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not
appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the
integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited.
INT. PEARL'S STOREFRONT - NIGHT
Pearl reaches into an old bureau drawer and pulls out an old
photo: Jimmy Bones with his arm around her. She sits down at
her table with a drink and just looks at the picture of
herself and her lover when the world was innocent and young.
She downs her glass and wipes her tears away.
OUTSIDE - DOWN THE BLOCK
In the upper window of the Bones Building we see his
silhouette, staring down the block towards Pearl.
INT. JEREMIAH'S KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS
Bones the dog slinks into the kitchen. Sniffing the air.
Still hungry. Always hungry.
His big black paw actually opens the refrigerator. With his
long nose he digs into the meat drawer. Inside he finds
plastic wrapped raw hamburger meat.
He pulls it out and drops it on the floor. Tears it open and
gorges himself on the raw meat.
EXT. BONES' BUILDING - CONTINUOUS
The house looms malevolently in the moonlight.
INT. BONES' BUILDING - CONTINUOUS
Bones' POV again in his rusted elevator cage. The POV floats
down through the house into the basement.
BASEMENT
Bones' POV looks at the padlocked door. Then passes right
through it.
INT. SUB-BASEMENT - CONTINUOUS
In the deeper darkness of the dirt cellar we see the Bones
shadow hovering over a slight mound in the dirt.
INT. JEREMIAH'S KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS
The black dog wolfs down the last of the hamburger meat.
INT. SUB-BASEMENT - CONTINUOUS
And as he does, the ground seems almost to breathe, or glow.
Bones plunges his long shadow-hands right into the earth as
if he could touch what was beneath and raise it up.
He remains like that, shadow hands buried in the dirt, head
tilting back and howling.
EXT. OUT ON THE STREET - CONTINUOUS
Shotgun up in his window, still, holding his gun. Hears the
howling. He looks around, expecting to see his nemesis, the
black dog. But only darkness.
EXT. JEREMIAH'S GATED COMMUNITY - NIGHT
Jeremiah's mansion stands in the moonlight. Its faux
Gerogian splendor in stark contrast to Bones' building in the
old neighborhood.
INT. PEET HOUSE - CONTINUOUS
The house is dark and quiet. All are asleep. The dog moves
silently through the house sniffing at doors.
INT. MASTER BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS
The dog silently noses the door open and stealthily enters
and pads softly over to Jeremiah's side of the bed.
Where it stares intently at the sleeping Jeremiah, who begins
to toss and turn. He settles again on his back. His head
tilted back, his soft, vulnerable throat exposed.
The dog steps closer to the bed. We can almost feel the
dog's hot fetid breath inches away from his throat.
The dog stares at Jeremiah. And for just a second the long
doggy face wavers and changes: in shifting shades of black, a
ragged red demonic face ripples beneath the black fur -- and
looks for an instant as if it were about to lunge and rip out
Jeremiah's throat!
But at the last second it freezes. Head cocks and ear lifts
as if hearing something in the wind. Its master's voice,
perhaps. And then the dog reverts to normal and pads out of
the room as silently as it entered.
This portion of the screenplay is originally pages 60-62. It is presented
out of order to reflect the final film. This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not
appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the
integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited.
EXT. BONES' BUILDING - CONTINUOUS
Cinnabar stops outside the building. She's about to knock
when she instinctively freezes. We can almost see the hairs
standing up on her neck one by one.
She looks around -- what is it? A sound, like a moan. Is it
her name? Or just the wind.
Suddenly, with a creak, the door swings open.
She takes a hesitant step into the building. Suddenly she
jumps, as a door to her left flies open.
It's just Patrick. She laughs in relief.
CINNABAR
Just thought I'd see if you needed any
help.
Patrick too surprised and tongue-tied to respond, so Tia
helps him out.
TIA
Good. We do need help. First you can
help us eat lunch.
Cinnabar follows Patrick into the room, with a last tense
look over her shoulder -- still the feeling something's
there.
INT. BONES' BUILDING - CONTINUOUS
Tia's feeding the insatiable dog. Handing quarter-pounders
to it, the thing scarfing 'em as fast as she can unwrap them.
Then, for a second, it stops. And looks up. And just stares
at something it knows is there -- but we humans can't see.
TIA
Watcha looking at, poochie?
Cinnabar follows the dog's glance. She sees nothing...or is
there something for a second there in the corner?
REVERSE - BONES-VISION POV
Is staring back at her, and at the dog. Cinnabar pulls her
sweater around her shoulders.
CINNABAR
I hate it when dogs do that. Like
they're looking right out of the world.
The dog continues scarfing down burgers, having him his way.
Cinnabar looks warily at the beast. Who stares right back at
her while wolfing down the burgers.
BONES-VISION/POV
Steps through the rusted metal into the old elevator shaft
and we follow it as it floats down.
INT. SUB-BASEMENT - CONTINUOUS
As the dog above eats we again see Bones' shadow form looming
over the seeing dirt, the dirt moving ever so subtly, and for
a subliminal second the dirt seems to be glowing.
INT. THE BUILDING - LATER
They're all painting. Maurice spins some tunes to accompany
them. It's a funky Tom Sawyer paint party. The kids defer
to Cinnabar, who's got a wild pallette, and a wild brush.
The place is coming alive with color.
This portion of the screenplay is originally pages 65-72. It is presented
out of order to reflect the final film. This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not
appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the
integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited.
INT. BONES' BUILDING - LATER THAT DAY
In Bones' old room, Patrick rolls over the faded stained old
shag carpet with a huge carpet cleaner.
ANGLE ON
The transparent tubes of the cleaner fill with disgusting red
fluid and carpet fibers.
TIME CUT TO:
Patrick stands back and surveys his work. The carpet looks
perfect. Old, a little faded, but clean. No stains.
With a smile of satisfaction he rolls the cleaner out of the
room and closes the door behind him. We remain in the room.
ANGLE ON
The now clean carpet. Suddenly we see glutinous red liquid
seeping back up through the shag, until the stain is right
where it was. Wet and fresh. Then we see it spread and
move, in the shape of a body and the path by which it was
dragged out of the room.
The door opens again, and Patrick steps in to show off the
freshly painted room clean rug to Cinnabar and the others.
He's brought up short by the sight of the stain.
PATRICK
Must be something seeping through. From
the floor.
They roll the carpet back, thinking there must be something
on the floor. The floor beneath the carpet is wet too, but
can't tell if it's from the rug or vice-versa.
He puts his hand down on the wood. A low rhythmic rumbling.
PATRICK (CONT'D)
Do you feel that?
The others place their hands on the floor.
TIA
Yeah. It's. Throbbing.
BILL
Like a heartbeat.
MAURICE
"Like a heartbeat/Like a love beat."
Listen to the Di Franco twins there.
Just the plumbing or something, fool.
PATRICK
Maybe there's a pipe underneath the
floor. It leaked and stained.
They just look at him.
PATRICK (CONT'D)
You got a better explanation
INT. BASEMENT - LATER
Patrick and the others in the basement listening to some very
strange sounds: groans, thumps, throbs.
MAURICE
Sounds like we got the Invisible Scratch
Piklz hiding in our pipes.
Patrick traces the piping with the wrench, he comes to a
triple corner, where three small pipes all come together.
PATRICK
I think these bring the water down from
the bathroom. Into this...
A larger pipe that goes down the wall and disappears beneath
the floor. The thumping sounds emanate from here. He puts
his finger along the seam of the joint. He pulls it away,
red.
PATRICK (CONT'D)
Check it out. The same shit that was in
the carpet. Told you it was from the
plumbing.
He lifts the wrench to tighten the seal. The metal groans.
Then snaps. Sending a thick spray of foul smelling red
sludge shooting out of the seam, right into Patrick's face.
PATRICK (CONT'D)
Damn, I knew these pipes were wacked.
He turns the wrench the other way, re-tightening. The sound
seems to move now through the piping. Then the red sludge
sprays out of the next three joints, smearing the others.
The pounding, throbbing sounds begin to bounce around the
room, as if something were actually moving through the pipes
until it returns to the central large pipe and moves down,
disappearing beneath their feet.
Then a rasping bark calls their attention. Bones the dog
sits by the padlocked door, panting. Grinning.
Patrick smashes the old lock with the large wrench and opens
the door to reveal another set of stairs leading down into a
deeper storm cellar where the sound disappeared.
INT. STORM CELLAR STAIRS - CONTINUOUS
As they go, the temperature drops. A cold, damp sheen
appears on their skin. Then comes a thick glutinous buzzing
sound.
TIA
What is that?
Flies. The stairway walls are thick with furry black flies.
MAURICE
(stopping)
Ugh. Muchos moscos, man. This is too
much.
BILL
Just some flies.
MAURICE
Some flies? I think this qualifies as
way more than "some."
CINNABAR
What a smell.
MAURICE
Hey, what you expect? Where there's
smoke there's fire. And where there's
flies, there's shit.
The stairs end in a dark, damp dirt cellar and the remnants
of the terminus of the old elevator shaft.
MAURICE (CONT'D)
Oh yeah, I guess this would be that space
that was so perfect for a recording
studio.
BILL
Maurice, man, shut the fuck up.
PATRICK
Yeah, well, Maurice is right. It's gonna
take more work than I thought. But we
can still do it. We'll lay a real floor
in here. Put damping on the walls.
Totally controlled sound. Be perfect.
No one could hear shit up on the street.
Behind them the dog is digging in the dirt. Furiously.
MAURICE
Yeah, perfect. Really excellent. We can
make our first record where no one can
hear us scream. Be afraid.
They're not paying any attention to the dog's incessant
digging. Only Cinnabar is. She's staring at it.
CINNABAR
Oh god...
And she sees, in the deepening muddy hole at the dog's paws,
at first glimpses and then the full view, a rotted human
corpse. Really just a skeleton. With something sticking out
of its chest. Cinnabar shrieks, while the guys try very hard
to act real cool.
BILL
Hello. Who're you?
Maurice bends and pulls out the now blood rusted razor.
MAURICE
Boys and girls, Moms and Dads. Children
of all ages, I'd like you to meet...
Jimmy Bones.
BILL
What the hell you talking about?
MAURICE
(singing)
"This is the story of Jimmy Bones/Black
as night and hard as stones/Gold plated
deuce, like the King of Siam/Got his
switchblade loose, and a diamond on his
hand..." There's the switchblade and
there's the diamond. Don't know where
the deuce is parked.
He points to one of the bony hands. The left one. On the
third finger is Jimmy's big diamond ring.
BILL
You think that's really him?
MAURICE
Damn. It's so...fresh.
And he's right. Oddly for an old skeleton, there are strands
and bands of wet, raw flesh. Maurice lifts the hand wearing
the ring. He starts top pull it loose from the finger.
TIA
Boy, put that thing down. You can't take
that. Might be evidence.
PATRICK
Evidence of what?
TIA
Somehow I don't think he stabbed himself
in the chest, then buried himself too.
Cinnabar sees something. Bright color beneath the body.
Bends down to a piece of cloth poking out from beneath the
bones.
The dog growls viciously as she reaches down to the scrap of
color poking up. Tia restrains the hound the best she can.
PATRICK
Get your damn dog, girl!
The cloth is the corner of a dress...the dog suddenly lunges
for Cinnabar's hands, ripping at them. She pulls back.
PATRICK (CONT'D)
Shit! Damn dog. We gonna have to do
something about you.
TIA
What we have to do is call the police.
MAURICE
Right. Call the police. We'll have no
problem getting our permits then.
TIA
We can't just leave it here.
PATRICK
Yeah, we can. Least till after this
weekend. He ain't going nowhere. We'll
deal with it then.
BILL
Whatever, let's just get the hellout of
here.
They all start to leave except Maurice and Cinnabar. He's
loitering by the body, eyeing the ring. She's staring into
the dark corner of the sub-basement.
HER POV IN THE DIM LIGHT
She sees something wavering, a shadow-mirage, Bones.
PATRICK (O.S.)
Cinn?
CINNABAR
What? Oh yeah. Coming.
She follows the others upstairs. Bones watches her form as
she climbs the steps, and --
-- for a second from BONES POV we see her mother, when she
was young.
Bones looks now at Maurice. Who checks to see if the others
are gone. Then Maurice hurriedly bends down, and while
holding his face back away from the stench attempts to pull
Bones' ring off his finger. But it's stuck.
He tugs again, harder, and rips the corpse's finger off.
MAURICE
Oh fuck.
Oh fuck is right. Bones' shadow rears as it sees this
desecration. Maurice slips the ring off the finger stump.
MAURICE (CONT'D)
(to the corpse)
Sorry, but you wont' be needing this.
He places the finger back by the hand. And pockets the ring.
MAURICE (CONT'D)
Or this.
INT. BUILDING KITCHEN - LATER THAT NIGHT
Tia fills a bowl with dry dog food. But Bones the dog turns
his head away and just whimpers.
TIA
Picky mutt.
She pulls out a package of raw hamburger, dumps it into the
bowl, then leaves. Behind her, the dog tucks into his chow.
INT. THE STORM CELLAR GRAVE - CONTINUOUS
The lock broken, the door stands ajar. And as the dog gorges
upstairs, something very strange is happening down here.
Flesh is growing on the bones. Bit by bit, red, wet strips
of muscle and flesh appear and spread over the corpse.
The shadow looks down at his semi-reconstituted corpse. It
almost looks like him, minus the skin. But it still has a
long ways to go. Still, mere strips of muscle and flesh on
the skeleton.
This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not
appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the
integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited.
EXT. PEARL'S STOREFRONT - NIGHT
Her usual small crowd arrives for her seance, all hoping this
will be the night they reach their loved ones' spirits. From
outside, through the window, we see Pearl greet and seat each
of them around the table. She starts lighting candles.
INT. BONES' PAD - NIGHT
Patrick and Cinnabar sipping a little Remy in his room.
Alone at last. Awkward. Intimate. He refills her glass.
CINNABAR
She doesn't want me here. With you. In
this house.
PATRICK
Believe me, my old man'd rupture his
spleen if he knew we was down here. All
he talks about is the medal he deserves
for building us a life as far from this
'hood as possible.
CINNABAR
He probably thinks he's saving you from
something. I'm sure that's what my
mother thinks.
PATRICK
I'm sure I can make your mother like me.
But then do I gotta worry 'bout your
father?
Suddenly their banter is dead. Her face looks stung, like
he'd slapped her.
CINNABAR
I don't know anything about my father. I
never met him. Momma won't talk about
him, either.
He puts his arms around her, and she melts into him.
INT. PEARL'S STOREFRONT - NIGHT
Pearl and the others seated in the dim room around a circular
table. They are holding hands. Only candle light.
PEARL
We should begin with a hymn.
INT. BONES' BUILDING - NIGHT - UPSTAIRS
In Bones' old room, the temperature between Cinn and Patrick
goes from PG to R.
The two kiss passionately, deeply -- Cinnabar loses herself
for a long beat -- then as if swimming up from the bottom of
a deep pool, she pulls herself back.
CINNABAR
I can't. Not yet.
PATRICK
It's alright. If you want to go home...
CINNABAR
No, I want to stay with you guys. But I
can't. I mean I'm not ready.
PATRICK
Don't worry about it. I'll stay with the
boys.
EXT. PEARL'S STOREFRONT - NIGHT
From outside, through the open window, we can hear the
strains of singing coming from her window.
INT. PEARL'S PARLOR - CONTINUOUS
We float around the members of Pearl's circle. See objects
on the table flickering in the candlelight.
PEARL
The spirit world is all around us right
this minute. And the departed are
pressing in around us.
Still singing, they all glance about them in darkness as if
they can make out the spirits around them.
Over the low bass of their hymn-singing, her voice cuts in.
Uncoiling and rising like smoke in the air: it's a beautiful
voice and it does seem to open a window in the air.
INT. BONES' ROOM - CONTINUOUS
Cinnabar gets into bed and turns off the light. Pitch dark
in there, can't see a thing.
As she's drifting off to dreamland, she hears what sounds
like the door quietly opening and someone slipping into the
darkness of the room, we just stay on her face.
It's cold in the place. And spooky. So she doesn't mind
when she feels what she assumes is Patrick slip in bed beside
her. Though we see only a shape sliding under the covers.
CINNABAR
(half-asleep)
It's okay, just don't get funny on me.
It's warmer this way.
INT. PEARL'S PARLOR - CONTINUOUS
Suddenly, the curtains fly open. And Pearl's voice suddenly
stops... and the flame on the candle shoots up, scorching the
ceiling before returning to normal.
PEARL
Someone's with us. Who's joined the
circle?
OLD MAN
Lordy...what's that smell?
OLD WOMAN
Look. The flowers.
The flowers whither. They retch from some smell.
PEARL
Knock once for yes. And twice for no.
Is there someone who wishes to send a
message?
Table rocks once.
PEARL (CONT'D)
A message for one of us in the circle?
Table rocks once.
PEARL (CONT'D)
Is it for miss Lillian?
Table rocks twice -- "no."
PEARL (CONT'D)
Is it a message for Mr. Abernathy?
Table rocks twice -- "No" again. She goes around the room,
inquiring for each of them. Each time the table says "No."
Until there is only her left. An eerie pause.
PEARL (CONT'D)
Is the message for me?
The table starts bucking wildly. And suddenly Pearl's neck
SNAPS back like it's been caught in a whip.
Her mouth opens and a low moan escapes. But sounds nothing
like her voice. A deep wind through an organ tube with
swarming bees and squealing hogs mixed in.
Everyone around the table just stares at her in alarm.
As her eyes widen. Go super close on her eyes and we see a
reflection in her pupil, not of the room she is in, but the
Jimmy's building twenty years ago.
INT. BONES' BUILDING - PAST/PRESENT
INTERCUT with her face back in the seance staring wide
mouthed in her trance.
The sound of her heart pounds like the deepest dub track.
Total dislocation for her as she sees Jimmy's old room, as it
was -- but also sees it as it is now, and with her daughter,
Cinnabar, lying underneath the covers of the big, round bed.
And lying close beside her, another figure beneath the
covers.
Whoever is there snuggles closer to Cinnabar. She responds
as he presses against her, then wakes up.
CINNABAR
(laughing low)
Cut it out.
But he doesn't. The movement beside her is undulant.
Strong, erotic, she almost gives into it. And still laughs
as she says:
CINNABAR (CONT'D)
No, no Patrick. Stop.
The figure in the bed presses urgently against her, in a
rocking movement which catches her up in it. She can't help
it, she begins to respond to the urging behind her.
Pearl's eyes widen as the whole room shifts and becomes one
fetid Necropoliptic texture. The bed retains its shape but
liquefies, seems to become one with the floor and the walls,
all made of a kind of thick, bloody-mud in which the trapped
faces and distorted limbs of the dead twist and moan.
Meanwhile, on that strange bed, the figure behind Cinnabar
seems to wrap soft limbs around her, locking her in embrace.
CINNABAR (CONT'D)
Cut it out.
But it doesn't cut out. It builds. Strong. Erotic.
Insistent. She almost gives in to it.
CINNABAR (CONT'D)
No, no Patrick. Stop.
But the movement is more insistent. And rougher. She starts
to protest louder when she feels a hand, or something, steal
across her mouth to muffle her objections.
Pearl tires to reach across her vision to grab her daughter
and help her, but she can't.
INT. PEARL'S PARLOR - CONTINUOUS
Back at the seance, Pearl's back is arched like a bass fiddle
string bowed, and then drops. Released. Back in her chair.
The instant she's returned to herself she's out of her chair
and out the door.
INT. BONES' PAD - CONTINUOUS
Cinnabar struggles with something in the bed, the covers
pulled tight against her face, she can't scream. She twists
and wrenches herself about, finally striking behind her with
a flailing fist, twists her face free and screams:
CINNABAR
Patrick! Stop!!
Across the room the door suddenly opens -- it's Patrick.
PATRICK
What's wrong?
ANGLE - AT PATRICK'S FEET
The black silhouette of the DOG slips out the door.
PATRICK (CONT'D)
Are you alright?
Cinnabar looks wildly around the room -- she's alone in the
big bed. No one attacking her. And she sees Patrick in the
doorway. But then who - or what - was in the bed?
Suddenly, her mother yells from below.
PEARL (O.S.)
Cinnabar!!!
Cinnabar lurches out of the bed over to the window. Down
below, her mother's going nuts at the entrance, pounding on
the door and practically running over Bill who's opening the
door.
PEARL (CONT'D)
Outta my way, boy. Cinnabar? I'm
coming!
BILL
Why don't you hang on and I'll see if
she's here.
PEARL
I know damn well she's there.
INT. BONES' BUILDING - CONTINUOUS
Cinnabar races down the stairs with Patrick, bewildered at
her heels.
Cinnabar runs out the door and straight into her mother's
arms, burying her face in the protective bosom of her mom.
Pearl wraps her frightened daughter in her arms and turns her
to home. Pearl looks up at the boys standing stunned in the
doorway.
PEARL
You might as well just dig down six feet
of muddy earth and sleep in your own
grave than stay another night in that
house.
She turns back towards her place, still holding the sobbing
Cinnabar. Bill and Patrick stand stunned in the doorway.
BILL
You sure got a way with women, bro. What
happened up there?
PATRICK
Damned if I know.
EXT. BLACKSTONE - DAY
Up on a ladder, the boys put on the finishing touches and
then HANG a new NEON SIGN over the door. Looks pretty cool.
TIA
Yes! We're in business.
INT. JEREMIAH'S CAR - LATE AFTERNOON
Heading south on Lake Shore Drive, a tensely smiling Patrick
in the front seat with Jeremiah.
JEREMIAH
Where are we going? You know I hate
surprises.
PATRICK
A little business move I made. On my
own. I think you're gonna approve.
EXT. CAR - CONTINUOUS
Heading off the main road into the ghetto. But as they head
further and further south, Jeremiah's getting uneasy.
JEREMIAH
What are we doing down here?
PATRICK
Like you always said, Pop, look for the
undervalued.
Now they are on the old street. As they drive down the
street, Jeremiah's getting more and more agitated.
EXT. BLACKSTONE - CONTINUOUS
They park and get out. He looks up and down the street,
oddly frightened.
PATRICK
I bet you didn't even know your bank
owned the place. I did it through a
broker so you wouldn't know it was me.
I couldn't wait to see your face when I
fixed it up.
It's the building. Freshly painted, with the neon sign. But
Jeremiah's face shows nothing like what Patrick expected.
Nothing but a horrified, angry disgust.
JEREMIAH
Is this some kind of sick joke?
Jeremiah's so angry he almost smacks Patrick.
JEREMIAH (CONT'D)
Listen to me, boy. I didn't work all my
life to get out of this neighborhood for
you to move right back in!
PATRICK
I thought you'd be psyched. Just trying
to do what you did. Take nothing and
make something out of it.
JEREMIAH
No one'll ever come here. Shut it down.
Don't worry, the bank'll buy it back.
I'll take care of it.
PATRICK
You'll take care of it? Not this time.
No way. I bought it fair and square.
And we open tonight.
JEREMIAH
Bullshit! Bullshit!! You're selling it
back! That's an order!
Jeremiah is furious out of all proportions. Some of the
others on the block have stuck their noses out to see what
the fuss is. Then Jeremiah comes eye to eye with Pearl,
standing across the street, watching, worried out of her
mind.
Then he looks up and sees Shotgun in the window. Feeling
trapped, humiliated. He wants out of this street. Out of
those glances.
JEREMIAH (CONT'D)
You all are coming back to the house,
now!
Nobody moves. Jeremiah walks back to his car and pulls away.
Patrick, frozen, turned to stone by rage and hurt and shame.
Another car pulls up. Several young people inside. They
look around a little dubiously.
CLUBBER
Man, I think we're lost. You guys know
where Illibent is?
They all look at each other. Silent. Until Maurice answers
by flipping a switch igniting the neon sign for the first
time.
Illibent shines in brilliant blue gas letters.
This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not
appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the
integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited.
DOWN THE BLOCK - LATER
The deuce and a quarter stops in front of a storefront. A
young Nefertiti in platforms and dashiki picks fresh fruit
and vegetables from the small grocery. PEARL VAUGHN.
BONES
Pull over. I'll walk the rest.
Pearl's picking ripe fruit. Jimmy steps in, catches her
hands, and the melon in them, in his hands.
BONES (CONT'D)
Naw, all wrong. First, start at the
belly button.
He strokes his thumb over the end of the cantaloupe, leaning
in to her.
BONES (CONT'D)
Gotta be an in-ey and gotta be smooth.
If it's ragged, it was picked too soon.
Won't ever be ripe. Second, it's got to
have just a little give, here.
(his hands on her hips)
At the edges. And last, but not very far
from least...
(now only a breath apart)
You gotta get your nose in it and give it
a gooooood, looooong sniff.
PEARL
I don't know whether to chill you and
serve with cottage cheese, or rip you
open and eat you right here.
She chooses the latter, they kiss.
EXT. STREET - TIME CUT
Jimmy's walking Pearl home; an apartment above the storefront
of her mother's fortune telling business.
BONES
Listen, Baby, I gotta TCB this evening.
So come over 'bout eight. We should be
finished by then.
EXT. BONES' BUILDING - LATER
Jimmy arrives home to be greeted on the steps of his building
by soul shakes and black hand fives from the corner boys
hanging out front.
INT. BONES' BUILDING - CONTINUOUS
Follow Bones into the lobby with people waiting to see him
for favors, etc. Rooms on either side, doors open allowing
us to glimpse his crew, taking orders over the phones.
An old fashioned metal cage elevator, with an equally old
fashioned operator waits to take Mr. Jimmy up to his pad. We
ride up with him, the king in his castle.
INT. BONES' PAD - CONTINUOUS
The elevator lets him out in his main room. A '70's love
pit. Mirrored ceiling, circular bed. Thick shag carpeting.
Jimmy nods at Shotgun, who lowers the needle into classic
vinyl groove of some prime Funkadelic ("Nappy Dug-out").
Jimmy splashes cologne on his face and looks contentedly out
the window at all his people, at his kingdom below...
EXT. BONES' BUILDING - LATER - DAY
The cop we saw with Jeremiah, LUPOVICH, and the wannabe
player EDDIE MACK (wearing an old Superfly suit, and sleek
black driving gloves) pull up in front of the old stone
building.
INT. BONES' PAD - CONTINUOUS
Shotgun mixes drinks at the bar and hands them to the just
arrived guests, Jeremiah, Officer Lupovich - looking stiff in
plain clothes - and Eddie Mack in his purple suit.
JEREMIAH
Hey Jimmy, you know Eddie Mack, don't
you?
BONES
We met.
MACK
Yeah, we used to do the after-school b
ball at Kenwood. What it is?
BONES
What it will be.
JEREMIAH
And Officer Lupovich.
Bones says nothing. Just nods at the cop.
MACK
You got a nice crib here.
BONES
I do alright. Everybody's happy.
MACK
But things change. You gotta think
ahead.
LUPOVICH
They got lotteries all over now, Bonesy.
Coming here too, maybe next year.
Bones' look sez: Bitch, don't call me that again.
JEREMIAH
Half our old customers are gonna be
getting their people to cross state lines
to pick up lotto tickets.
MACK
Besides, there's more money to be made in
the gin than the juice. What do anybody
want with numbers anyway?
BONES
What else? Money.
MACK
It ain't the money - it's the high. The
big fat floating 'what if?' And it's way
more profitable. Nobody ever wins. So
you never have to pay out.
BONES
But a two dollar bet is cheaper than a
twenty-dollar bag.
MACK
Yeah, but I ain't talking horse. I'm
talking about a five-dollar kick in the
head that's a quick ticket to heaven.
And the fools keep coming back for more.
BONES
Those 'fools' are my people.
MACK
Ain't no big thang. It's just a po'
man's free base. Here, check it out.
Eddie pulls a little rock of crack out. Jimmy takes it in
his hand and sniffs it. Then shrugs and hands it back.
BONES
I ain't interested. And if you gonna
sell it, don't sell it round here.
MACK
Just try it.
BONES
I said, no thanks.
MACK
Go on. It won't kill you.
SHOTGUN
Back off, Huggybear...
MACK
It's like this, Jimmy. There's a wave
coming. A big ass Krakatoa, East of Java
wave. And either you gonna be on top of
the wave up there in chocolate heaven, or
you gonna be buried 'neath the muddy
undertow.
BONES
That's cool. Totally wide-screen sci-fi.
Forward thinking. I respect that. But
that ain't my life. I'm here and now.
Comfortable as a bed bug on a cold night
in a warm nappy dugout. I'm maintaining.
That's what it's about for me. And your
twelve and a half-minutes is up.
Jimmy just walks away from him. Meeting over. Eddie and
Lupovich and Jeremiah all look at each other, frustrated.
MACK
Fine. Let's go, Loopy-Lou. Jimmy ain't
into it. Gonna skip the money train and
take the bus. His loss.
Lupovich turns but then spins back around with a .45 in his
hand and it's pointed at Jimmy's forehead. Jeremiah didn't
expect this - or did he?
JEREMIAH
Everybody just be cool. Jimmy, man, I
think you oughtta hear the deal.
BONES
I don't need to hear the deal. I don't
need any partners. I don't need new
product. And I sure as hell don't need
this motherfucker's 'mattie in my face.
MACK
Just try it, Jimmy. That's all...
He hands him the rock. And a little pipe.
LUPOVICH
You heard the man. Try it.
Bones keeps his eye on him as he lights the lighter and takes
a deep puff. Then lets out a deep cloud of smoke.
His eyes go a bit glazed. And from his POV we see the room
start to tilt on its axis as everything goes wobbly.
Just then, the door opens and Pearl steps in, distracting
Lupovich for an instant.
In one eternal crack fueled fast-and-slo-mo second: Jimmy
sees his chance, he pulls his razor, but too slow --
Lupovich turns, the razor no more than lightly slices his
arm, and he pulls the trigger on Jimmy Bones...
Pumping three shots into Jimmy's abdomen, knocking him to the
ground. Shotgun grabs his gun, but too late. He's covered.
MACK
Ain't worth it, Blood. Just drop it.
And kick it here.
Pearl in screaming shock. Her lover bleeding on the carpet.
LUPOVICH
Tell her to stop screaming.
Bones is bleeding, and still tripping bad.
LUPOVICH (CONT'D)
I said stop that bitch screaming or I'll
spread her like butter.
Shotgun gently puts his hand on Pearl's mouth to quiet her.
BACK IN BONES' FUCKED-UP POV:
Looking down he sees his own blood pouring out, a thick
divine river of many colors. Looking up, they all stand
wavering above him, hungry demons, their voices distorting.
LUPOVICH (CONT'D)
Get his razor. I ain't gonna be the only
one with this nigger's blood on my hands.
Mack plucks Bone's silver razor right out of his hands.
LUPOVICH (CONT'D)
Take the gloves off. Everybody leaves a
print. We hang out together. Or we hang
separately. Cut him. And cut him good.
Eddie pulls his glove off and enjoys himself as he shoves the
razor into Jimmy.
MACK
What it is? What it will be, muthafucka.
LUPOVICH
Now you.
JEREMIAH
No way man...
LUPOVICH
You cut him, or I shoot you. Make your
choice.
Jeremiah gets down near Bones. Bones stares right into his
eyes, as his life blood pours freely, weakly lifts his arm to
his best friend's face.
BONES
Jay bird...help me...like brothers.
Jeremiah feels Lupovich's gun behind his head. Hears it
cocked.
JEREMIAH
Sorry, my brother.
BONES
Since we was just grasshoppers...
JEREMIAH
You always told me, it's a dog eat dog
world.
And he thrusts Bones' razor right between the ribs. Bones'
eyes tighten, but never lose their lock on Jeremiah's eyes.
His mouth moves as if he's trying to speak. Instead, he
spits a bog of blood right into Jeremiah's face.
A shaken Jeremiah hands the bloody razor to Shotgun.
JEREMIAH (CONT'D)
Just do it. He won't even feel it.
Bones' eyes bore into Shotgun's. Shotgun hesitates. Eyeing
his gun on the floor, feeling the one on the back of his neck
-- calculating his chances.
Then Shotgun slices him. Bones flinches, he definitely still
feels it. Shotgun hands the razor back to Eddie.
LUPOVICH
Now you, girlie.
PEARL
I won't.
LUPOVICH
Same deal all around. Or die with him.
She takes the razor and slowly kneels beside her dying lover.
Her hands trembling. There's no way she can do it. Lupovich
brings the gun to the back of her head.
PEARL
I can't. I won't. Go ahead. Shoot me.
I'll be better off.
Bones reaches one hand round the back of her neck, weakly
storking her there... And with his other hand, Bones takes
her wrists and pulls her hand towards him, burying his razor
in his heart. His eyes roll back and his hand falls away and
he's gone.
She drops her hand from the razor which remains sticking out
of his chest, a river of blood pouring from around it.
BONES POV
As his spirit rises and rises, up to the ceiling, looking
down on them as they stand watching his body bleed to death.
Pearl just stands there completely covered in his blood.
Then in a frantic daze tears her dress off. Jeremiah gently
takes her bloody dress.
From above, Bones can hear them speaking below, but it's as
if they were speaking far away.
JEREMIAH
Too risky to take him outside. Take him
down to the storm cellar and bury him.
And get rid of this too.
(tosses Pearl's bloody dress)
Let this whole damn building be his tomb.
Shotgun and Lupovich drag Bones' body out of the room,
leaving behind a deep wet blood stain in the shag carpet.
BONES POV
As he stares down in horror at all this. Above him, it seems
he can see right through the ceiling to the night sky, and a
swirling light opening above his head.
NOW HIS POV
Is floating upward towards the light, but then he looks
BACK DOWN
Staring down at the sight of his body in a deep puddle of
blood, and his murderers removing his woman's dress covered
with is blood. As he sees this, his (and ours) POV changes,
becomes darker, yet clearer; too sharp, razor sharp as some
softness, perhaps life itself, drains out of it. Bones sees
his best friend Jeremiah and Lupovich together dragging his
body out the door, leaving a thick wet stain behind him.
We can hear Jimmy's last wail of rage twist and distorts in
the air, becoming another deeper voice within the voice...
And then he (and we) plunge back down to the ground, right to
the dark, wet stain in the carpet...
Hit it and go down through an instant's glimpse into the
black sea beneath the foundation of the world:
Necropolis. Where space itself seems to be made of pale
bloated, gnawing, writhing things. Bodies perpetually
devouring themselves and each other.
We see through this dog-eat-dog nightmare, back out through
the blood stain as through a key hole slowly closing.
This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not
appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the
integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited.
EXT. CLUB - LATER
A line out front.
PATRICK
Be cool. Everybody's gonna get in.
Patrick alternates between tending the crowd and throwing
anxious glances down the block towards Cinnabar's home.
Torn between exhilaration at seeing his dream come true and
disappointment that Cinnabar's not there to share it.
People chomping to get in. Across the street Shotgun watches
with dismay.
Patrick hears voices down the street. Looks up to see
Cinnabar walking towards the club. His smile freezes when he
sees Pearl right behind her. Trying to stop Cinn.
PEARL
...I've seen things. In there. Last
night. You did too. Don't tell me you
didn't. You were crying like a baby.
CINNABAR
You said the vision, the images. They're
just that. Just pictures. They can't
hurt you. That's what you always said.
PEARL
I lied.
CINNABAR
All the more reason I should be here.
PEARL
Please. It's for your own good.
CINNABAR
You said bad things hurt places. So
maybe good things heal them. Good things
are happening here. Maybe for the first
time ever. And maybe that's all it
takes.
Pearl sees she can't stop Cinn. Any more than her mother
could have stopped Pearl when she was her age.
PEARL
I hope so, child. I really hope so.
She can only watch as Cinnabar gives Patrick a big hug and
follows him and the rest of the crowd into the club.
INT. THE BUILDING/CLUB - CONTINUOUS
The place is unfinished. But all the cooler for it. The bar
is crude. Cheap beer and jug wine. But the crowd don't
mind. The place is alive. The boys are on fire.
A packed floor of dancers move as sound and image break beat,
and Maurice's voice erupts in deep dub reverb.
MAURICE
The gangsta of love is in the house.
Hits the reverb and it echoes.
ECHO (O.S.)
In the house...house...house...
ON SCREENS
Throughout the house, the video interviews the guys did and
mixed like audio samples with old blaxploitation clips and
other video oddities the boys came up with.
MAURICE
Ill Bill is in the house...house...house
... house.
And over Maurice's Gothic drum and bass, Bill starts
turntabling some seriously dark funk.
INTERCUT WITH THE BLACK DOG
coming ominously down the third floor stairs.
MAURICE (CONT'D)
Jimmy Bones is in the house...house...
house...
This is the story of Jimmy Bones. Black
as night and hard as stones.
The dog now on the second floor stairs.
BILL
...Bones ol' Bones so mean and bad,
whupped his mamma, shot his dad.
MAURICE
Saw Bones ol' Bones on top of the hill.
Rolling fat jays outta hundred dollar
bills.
TIA
...Lord he never worked a day and he
never will...
Bill builds, lets the record spin, then pops the kill button.
The tune fades in a distorted way as he start/stops/start/
stops it, forcing the sound backwards and forwards...
...as Maurice twiddles dials and distorts it all further --
it's spooky, but way funky.
NEW ANGLE - THE BLACK DOG
Is now in the house too. Walking through the throbbing
crowd, making a path right through them, most of the dancers
paying it no mind, it's just another part of the trippy
scene. Or do they even see it? We can't tell.
CLOSER ANGLE - ON THE DOG
And it's single-minded concentration. Staring straight ahead
as it moves through the crowd towards Maurice, who for a
second, notices the dog coming but making nothing of it.
REVERSE - THE DOG'S POV
What it's staring at. Bones' old ring on Maurice's finger.
NEW ANGLE - MAURICE'S POV
When he looks back, he sees not a dog, but a beautiful black
woman, a Dark Lady, who only has eyes for him.
Dancing seductively, drawing a crowd as she moves, she stares
straight ahead at Maurice.
Maurice's joint droops from the corner of his mouth as he
realizes "YES!", this world-class beauty is most definitely
flirting with him.
The Dark Lady's still throwing him deep looks as she dances
off the floor and then disappears up the stairs, making
Maurice lean into Bill.
MAURICE
Can you take a little extended solo right
about now, funk soul brotha?
BILL
Go for it.
Maurice heads upstairs, sure that his short DJ career is
already paying off big time.
INT. UPSTAIRS - CONTINUOUS
Maurice slips into the darkness of the room and closes the
door behind him.
MAURICE
Hey, baby. Time for a little meat beat
manifesto.
In the darkness he can't see where she is. Just hear a deep
breathing, almost panting.
MAURICE (CONT'D)
Ahhh, tantric breathing. I'm in love.
He can't see her. Or anything in the dark room. Finally his
eyes adapt to the dark and he sees a dark shape by the bed.
MAURICE (CONT'D)
That's it, honey. Don't need to speak.
Jesuis le Gangsta de l'amour. El Gaucho
della Cosmos. We will speak zee
international language of love...
He pulls out a lighter to light his joint (and see where she
is) but when he does it's not her beautiful dark features he
sees, but:
For the blink of an eye, it's totally blank face, except for
a HUGE MOUTH with liver lips, pink gums and wolfen teeth.
When it exhales, out comes a noxious cloud of tiny insects.
And then in the blink it's the raging black dog leaping open
jawed at his face.
Maurice screams and drops his light in fright. He starts
crawling towards the door and the overhead light switch.
While trying to fend himself from the wailing teeth and claws
of the canine creature...
INT. THE CLUB - CONTINUOUS
Maurice's screams are inaudible. Just another faint part of
the complicated mix. Maurice's voice, a sample loop, is part
of the boys' mix.
MAURICE (O.S.)
(voice in music mix)
"Jimmy Bones is in the house...house...
house."
INT. UPSTAIRS - CONTINUOUS
Furious flashes and glimpses of savage teeth and claws
ripping Maurice.
INT. THE CLUB - CONTINUOUS
Bill's extended turntablism rocks the house. Tia replaces
Patrick behind the bar while Cinnabar drags him on to the
dance floor.
INT. SUB-BASEMENT - CONTINUOUS
Bones-vision moves/floats all the way down to the basement.
He squats over his own corpse.
Before our eyes (INTERCUT with flashes of the demon-dog
feasting on Maurice upstairs), more and more flesh grows on
the bones of Bones.
INT. DANCE FLOOR - CONTINUOUS
Bill signals Patrick, calling him over.
BILL
Where's the gangsta of love?
PATRICK
Probably stoned out of his gourd in some
corner.
BILL
Well, go find his lazy ass. I scratch
any more tonight I'm gonna have carpal
tunnel syndrome.
This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not
appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the
integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited.
INT. UPSTAIRS - CONTINUOUS
Patrick walks upstairs - we fear he will be next.
PATRICK
Yo. Maurice. Where are you?
He tries a door. Nothing. Then he hears noises from the
third floor.
INT. HALLWAY - CONTINUOUS
Patrick opens the remaining bedroom door on a nightmare
tableaux. Maurice lies in a pool of blood. His body shakes
and shudders spasmodically as the dog feasts on his liver.
Patrick starts for Maurice but the dog growls to keep him
back away from its precious food. Patrick backs up a step.
Almost out of his mind with terror. He really loses it when
the dog, in SLO-MO, looks up and directly at him. It seems
to be wearing Maurice's face and speaks with a twisted
version of his (Maurice's) voice:
DOG/MAURICE
The gangsta of love don't eat no fried
chicken...
And before Patrick can even freak, the dog has returned to
it's normal dog face, and it lunges at Patrick, taking a
sizeable bite out of his arm.
Patrick leaps back out the door, with only a fast glance back
at the thing in the room --
The dog is not following him. It's standing. Over Maurice's
remains. Growling low, it begins to shudder uncontrollably
to bulge and ooze.
The gore covered dog quivers and swells and bulges and
finally explodes into a shower of pulsating maggots, flying
all over the room and all over Patrick's eyes and in his
mouth.
INT. BASEMENT - CONTINUOUS
The body is now done. It looks whole again. Even strong and
young. If still gray and cold until Bones lies down, curls
up into the body filling the rejuvenated corpse with the
vital life force of his vengeful rage.
Bones/The Body opens his eyes, stands up not tottering as
before but filled with strength. He looks as good as new,
except for the tattered clothes.
ON THE DANCE FLOOR - CONTINUOUS
The dancers can't hear Patrick screaming or running down the
stairs. They're just groovin' along to Ill Bill and the
funk.
Until the maggots start oozing and pouring through the
ceiling onto their hair and faces and clothes, into their
drinks at the bar and onto their pizza slices.
Then Patrick comes into the room screaming and all hell
breaks loose as the sight of him, plus the maggots, sends
everyone tearing for the exits.
Seeing his brother in terror, Bill slams the tone arm
screeching the needle across the record, leaving only the
psycho drum and bass playing on the other channels of the
mix.
INT. BASEMENT - CONTINUOUS
Meanwhile, down below, the freshly embodied Bones studies the
gas furnace. This time when he bends down to blow out the
light -- wooosh, he blows it out. He reaches under the tank
and the gas hisses out.
Then he eyes his old razor on the floor. With a confident,
strong grip, he picks it up and now, finally --
BONES IS BACK IN BUSINESS.
INT. DANCE FLOOR - CONTINUOUS
Hell-maggots still falling onto people, maggots on the floor
making people slip and fall as they jam the exits. Screaming
chaos, people trying to break windows to get out faster...
Patrick looks across the chaotic room and sees Cinnabar and
Tia cringing under a table. Trapped there. Bill in the
doorway trying to get people out.
INT. BASEMENT - CONTINUOUS
At the top of the stairs, leading up out of the sub basement,
Bones smashes the bulb of the hanging light. Then flips the
light switch -- the spark ignites the gas behind him. It
causes a fiery explosion in the lower basement.
The fire's light seems the very glow of hellfire behind Bones
as he marches up the stairs, razor in his hand.
INT. DANCE FLOOR - CONTINUOUS
Patrick, trying to stay low, crawls his way to where his
sister and Cinnabar are trapped.
Fire begins to burn through from the kitchen and up through
the floor. The room is filling with smoke.
Bill's helping those trampled in the rush to get out. Bill
himself bleeds badly from his neck.
Patrick runs with Cinnabar and Tia toward the door. And as
the smoke fills the room, through the haze we see:
Bones step into the room. His arm raised with the razor.
And he flings it out, like a boomerang, the razor flies
around the room.
It swoops down through the smoke at the remaining kids,
hacking at them through the smoke, like some savage bird,
though it doesn't seem intent on slaughtering them, but
rather herding them out. Bill and Patrick pull Cinnabar and
Tia out the door -- they're the last in the room.
Suddenly the razor stops, freezes in mid-air and zips back
into Bones' waiting fist - just like a boomerang.
Razor held high, Bones advances on them, steadily, cool as
ice amidst the now fully burning house.
EXT. STREET - CONTINUOUS
Shotgun, Pearl and a few others have run out into the street
to watch the fire. In the distance, sirens already wail.
Pearl holds her breath until she sees Cinnabar safe.
Looking for an instant, they all see Bones as the room is
engulfed in flames. See him raise his fists in a rage. Or
is it in triumph? Before his figure is obscured by falling
debris.
Sirens wail as fire trucks pull up and the men start
unrolling a hose. But freeze at the cocking of the shotgun.
SHOTGUN
Unh-unh. Let it burn.
The rising flames illuminate the faces of spectators.
Especially shotgun and Pearl, who for the first time in 20
years, look each other straight in the eyes.
SHOTGUN (CONT'D)
We shoulda done this a long time ago.
PEARL
I don't know.
Her flame-reflecting eyes telling us her fear: this may be a
huge mistake.
INT. BONES' HOUSE - CONTINUOUS
In the burning room, we see Bones, oblivious to the flames,
climbing the stairs.
INTO HIS HOLD ROOM WHERE
He comes to what's left of Maurice. Finds his hand bloodied
and barely attached to the wrist, and on it -- Bones' ring.
BONES
You won't be needing this.
Bones slips it onto his stump of a finger.
INT. POLICE STATION - CONTINUOUS
Patrick and the others sit ashen-faced under questioning by
cops and arson investigators.
INVESTIGATOR
Flying razor, big black man, spontaneous
explosion. I got just one question: what
the hell narcotic were you all on?
PATRICK
We never did that. Only...Maurice was
into it.
COP
That's the one you left behind?
BILL
Yeah. My man Maurice. The Space Cowboy.
The Gangsta of Love.
He breaks down. Just then, Jeremiah walks in with a lawyer.
JEREMIAH
None of you say another word.
INT. PEARL'S STOREFRONT - CONTINUOUS
Cinnabar is crying, Pearl holding her.
PEARL
It's alright, baby.
CINNABAR
Who was he, Momma? He tried to kill us.
PEARL
If he was trying to kill you, you'd be
dead.
CINNABAR
Who? Who is he? What is he?
PEARL
Your father. He was your father.
INT. CAR - LATER THAT NIGHT
Jeremiah drives his still shocked and silent brood back to
safety behind the gates of Rossmore Park.
JEREMIAH
I don't want any of you ever back down
there again. You hear me? And this time
you'll listen to me. Or I'll let them
throw your asses in jail. I mean it.
INT. PEARL'S STOREFRONT - CONTINUOUS
Cinnabar, listening to her mother, is told what happened.
PEARL
You got his hands. Beautiful hands. I
didn't even know. That night. When they
- we - killed him, that you were already
alive inside me. Life's like that.
Grows right out of death.
CINNABAR
But if it's him. If he's really come
back, won't he know us? Love us?
PEARL
Sure, if it was really him. But it isn't
that simple. Jimmy's body died a long
time ago. And his soul is long gone, and
all that's left is that ravening, hungry
spirit in the blood that soaked into the
house itself, I suppose.
CINNABAR
But how do you know? Maybe he just
wanted to see us? And now he's gone
again. And you've all killed my father
for the second time.
Cinnabar runs crying out of the room.
This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not
appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the
integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited.
EXT. BACK ON THE STREET - PRE-DAWN
The building is finished, just a blackened shell. Remnants
of the staircase lead up to fragments of the upper floors.
Smoke still billowing from the empty center of the ruin.
Silhouetted in the smoke and the low light of the rising sun:
a tall, dark figure, not of then, nor quite of now.
It is Bones. Taller, thinner, darker and more menacing then
ever. But unmistakably Bones. He steps out of the rubble.
And looks across the street, up at Shotgun's lit window.
INT. SHOTGUN'S APARTMENT - CONTINUOUS
Shotgun's hand shakes as he pours another shot. Then downs
it. He turns to the window and freezes at what he sees.
Bones face is just outside the window. The second story
window. Smiling in at him. Shotgun is petrified. But then
he picks up his gun and shoots at the face in the window.
BONES (O.S.)
Free at last, free at last.
Shotgun whirls and there stands Bones behind him now.
SHOTGUN
It wasn't my fault. I didn't know what
they'd planned.
BONES
Shush. It don't matter now.
SHOTGUN
No. Really, Jimmy. Remember, man. It's
me. I was on your side. Don't you
remember?
He just walks towards the terrified Shotgun, closer and
closer, leaning right over his shotgun, his face coming just
inches from Shotgun's face.
BONES
Take a look at what I remember,
brother...
His big brown eyes fill Shotgun's vision, and in what now
seem to be the gigantic pupils in Bones' eyes, Shotgun sees
the old apartment, and there it all is again and again.
Shotgun sees himself hesitating, almost risking it all and
instead giving in, stabbing Bones -- he can't look away.
Then Bones closes his eyes. Shotgun sobbing now.
SHOTGUN
I had no choice, Jimmy. What else could
I do?
BONES
You coulda died with me. Died trying.
Shotgun is cradling his weapon, hands shaking. He points it
at Bones and pulls the trigger. Bones doesn't even flinch as
the pellets rip through him.
BONES (CONT'D)
Feel better?
Bones' impossibly long fingers hold his long rusty razor. He
waves the razor in front of Shotgun, the rusty blade swinging
free back and forth, hypnotically, with a rasping sound.
BONES (CONT'D)
You gonna be free and clear, Shotgun.
All debts paid...
And then in one swift motion, on the back stroke, Bones' hand
and razor slash across Shotgun's throat.
Shotgun doesn't even have time to scream, we just hear his
breath and blood escaping from the new opening across his
neck.
Bones bends down and cradling his old friend, whispers gently
into his ear. Singing, perhaps. We can't quite hear.
BONES (CONT'D)
See you on the other side, brother.
Bones gets up and moves around the room, standing before the
window and looking down at the neighborhood he used to own.
For a second he sees the old neighborhood, everybody hanging
out. Then he blinks back to reality. He looks down the
block and sees Pearl's reader and advisor sign.
INT. JEREMIAH'S HOUSE - DAY
Bill in a kind of shock can only lie in his bedroom, staring
at the ceiling.
Tia's out in the living room, sitting on the couch weeping in
her mother's arms.
Patrick's in the bathroom tending the bloody scratches on his
back and arms. He's frightened. And angry. He storms out
of the bathroom, down the hall to his father's office.
INT. JEREMIAH'S STUDY - CONTINUOUS
As Patrick slams the door behind him, Jeremiah hides a stack
of papers and photos beneath a pile on his desk.
PATRICK
Did you do it?
JEREMIAH
Sure, son. I went down there and torched
the place myself.
PATRICK
You could have had it done. You didn't
want us there.
JEREMIAH
I wouldn't have risked killing you to get
you out. I was trying to protect you.
PATRICK
From what?
Jeremiah can't answer. But Patrick's not leaving it alone.
PATRICK (CONT'D)
Why? Why did you give a shit about the
building? Why did you care that we were
there of all places?
JEREMIAH
It's...it's a bad neighborhood. As you
can see now.
PATRICK
Bullshit, Dad. Don't front me. For
once. Just tell me the truth. I came
from there, too.
JEREMIAH
You were just a kid.
PATRICK
I saw your face. You knew that place.
You knew those people.
JEREMIAH
That's the past. It's dead.
PATRICK
Dead? I don't think your past is dead.
(points to the bandages)
It's alive. And it bites.
EXT. BLACKSTONE STREET - NIGHT
That night we see a walking shadow. The long tall black clad
Bones. Heading down his old block. Alone.
As he moves, his face changes, at times demonic and intent.
But periodically that shifts as if a mask slipping off to
reveal a similar but different face below. More human, lost,
pained, confused, and we see why:
FROM BONES' FUCKED UP UNDEAD POV:
The dark and desolate street he walks down keeps flashing for
brief instants into the street of twenty years ago.
One moment, people nodding to him, waving, blowing kisses.
And then suddenly, it's the empty burnt block it is now.
Bones' face shifts, cracking, one second the hungry ghost.
The next, he's the old Bones who once ruled this 'hood.
He sees, down the block, the old palmistry sign. It's
Pearl's place. For a second, the face of the real Jimmy
Bones triumphs and he smiles. Then hears voices behind him.
Stank and Weaze. They see a tall, thin figure in some very
fine looking, long duster.
STANK
Looking to score?
BONES
Unh-unh, little brother. I got a natural
high. A supernatural high.
STANK
Hey, Eddie Mack don't like no wackos on
his street. Go be Rain Man on some other
bitch's block.
BONES
(sorta singing)
Big Bad Eddie Mack? Got shit for brains
and that's a fack. Hey-heh...
WEAZE
Yeah. But he got a baaaad coat. Whataya
say, bro? I check out your coat?
BONES
Sure. Here it is.
Suddenly, out from the depths of his shadow, flies the edge
of Bones' razor and the blade slashes Stank in the face.
Cutting a sideways, smart aleck smile in his cheek.
Weaze pulls a gun and shoots Bones. Bones jolts a little as
the bullet imbeds itself in his stomach. But he takes it
like a punch and looks up.
BONES (CONT'D)
Cut that shit out.
He grabs one of the boys in each long hand and hoists them up
to his height and pins them against the wall.
BONES (CONT'D)
You tell my old friend Mackie, I'll be
seeing him. Soon. Real soon.
STANK
Wh-wh-whooo?
BONES
Bones.
This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not
appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the
integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited.
INT. PEARL'S PARLOR - NIGHT
Pearl sits alone, drinking. Maybe crying a little. Her
hands shuffle large tarot cards. She lays her own spread.
First card face down. Second card face up.
THE LOVERS.
And across it the third is laid: the crumbling Tower.
Then she slips the first card, the down-turned card out and
flips it face up. Death. Suddenly a long black shadow falls
over the table.
PEARL
(without looking up)
Welcome back, lover.
She finally looks up at him.
PEARL (CONT'D)
Not so bad. You're not quite him. But
you're not the shaggy demon I expected,
neither.
His face quivers and we see from his POV:
Pearl - then and now. Again, then and now.
PEARL (CONT'D)
You look confused. The dead often are.
'Course, so are the living. Take me. I
been confused a long time. Least twenty
years. Maybe if I hadn'ta walked in at
that moment. Or maybe if I hadn'ta let
you go at all. I figure one way or the
other, I killed you. So it's only fair:
kill me, lover. I don't mind. I'll even
help you. The way you helped me.
She grabs his hand, tries to stab herself with his razor.
But he resists. Pulls his arm free.
PEARL (CONT'D)
No? That mean there's something more
left of you than just that hungry spirit?
What are you going to do now? Kill us?
Kill us all?
BONES
No. Not...not you. You I forgive.
She hurls herself at him. Slapping him. Slamming her fists
against his shadowy chest.
PEARL
Forgive me? The hell with you, Jimmy.
Cause I don't forgive you, I don't
forgive you for dying. And for being so
goddamn stubborn. Or for haunting my
dreams. And I don't forgive you for
anything you're about to do.
He looks down at her. His face wavering between the true
face of Jimmy Bones and the angry Bones ready to kill her.
Then he wraps his arms around her and they kiss. She faints,
the cards in her fist fluttering to the floor.
He lays her gently down. When suddenly Cinnabar throws the
door open.
She and Bones make eye contact. She sets eyes for the first
time on the father she's never known. And in the blink of
her eye, he's gone. She runs to where her mom lies on the
floor.
EXT. BLACK CAT POOL CLUB - NIGHT
Stank and Weaze with Eddie Mack, who's getting a manicure
from a coke whore.
MACK
You boys been hitting the pipe?
WEAZE
No, Eddie. It's just that, I dunno. He
was tall, and thin, and like a shadow,
his face was just a blur. All I remember
is the voice. It was smooth and low and
it didn't seem to be comin' out of his
mouth.
MACK
Then how'd you hear it, fool?
WEAZE
It was just like in my head.
MACK
Maybe I oughta open a couple holes in
that head and let all them voices out.
You'll feel better, I promise.
STANK
No, Eddie, man. Wait.
But he's not about to shoot him. He leans over and snorts a
line of white powder off the mirrored tray.
MACK
I told you not to lie to me. Now what
the hell happened?
COKE WHORE
(needs a hit)
What about me, baby?
MACK
Shutup, bitch. Now what, he just said to
tell you what? He was back? Who was
back?
STANK
Bones.
At the very sound of the name, Mack freezes. Then with
sudden coke-fueled ferocity, he whips around and starts
smacking the shit out of Stank, breaking his nose. The coke
whore cheering Eddie on. Wanting to see more action.
MACK
Bones? What the fuck is that supposed to
mean? Get the fuck out of here. Both of
you, 'fore you hear my voice up in yo'
head.
INT. PEARL'S STOREFRONT - NIGHT
Cinnabar pours some bourbon into a coke for her mother. But
Pearl just grabs the bottle and takes a straight hit.
PEARL
He'll kill them. He'll kill every last
one of them.
CINNABAR
Who?
PEARL
Eddie Mack, that cop. And Jeremiah. And
even when he's done, who knows. He won't
be satisfied. Just like that demon dog.
Feed it, and it just grows hungrier.
Feed his hunger for revenge - he just
wants more. Who knows where it'll stop.
That kind of hunger ain't never
satisfied.
CINNABAR
Aren't you gonna do something about it?
PEARL
Like what? I got a little power, sure.
A touch of the shining, a little of the
sight. But no more than you do. We're
not witches. I can't wiggle my nose or
say a magic word and make him go away.
Besides, maybe they deserve it. Maybe we
all do.
CINNABAR
I don't. Patrick doesn't. And his
brother and sister don't. And they're in
the house with him.
PEARL
(long beat)
Fine. Maybe I got nothing to lose.
'Cept you.
INT. BLACK CAT POOL CLUB - NIGHT
The lights are low and only the glow of the jukebox and the
sounds of Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes as Mack and his
manicurist get down on the pooltable, beside an ornate mirror
laden with two gold '45s and an ounce of cocaine. Which they
are both doing to excess.
Mack's wearing nothing but a black hat and black satin briefs
(not a pretty sight). Working now on her blouse.
MACK
Bones, my ass.
(sings while unbuttoning the
manicurist's blouse)
"...if you don't believe he's laid to
rest/You count the holes in his
motherfucking chest..."
She laughs and gets up.
COKE WHORE
That tickles. I want to hear that again.
He watches her sashay to the other room where the juke box
is. Then bends over the mirror to do a new line.
From the other room, the song changes. A deep menacing
rolling funk number.
MACK
That's it, baby. Gimme the rolling bass
and I'll tickle your tweeter all night
long...
INT. CLUBROOM - CONTINUOUS
"Baby's" standing wide-eyed next to the jukebox, staring at
Bones, his razor pressed against her quivering lips.
INT. BLACK CAT POOL CLUB - CONTINUOUS
Mack's wondering where she is.
MACK
C'mon, baby!
He walks doing a little funky Rufus Thomas shuffle to the
music. He steps into the club room. It's dark, lit only by
the jukebox. But it's empty.
MACK (CONT'D)
Bitch. Nobody walks out on Eddie Mack.
Then he sees something. Her legs on the floor, sticking out
behind the jukebox. He walks towards her, slowly...
Then sees the deepening pool of blood pouring across the
floor right towards him. Whatever happened to her, she's
beyond his help now.
MACK (CONT'D)
Muthafucka!
He whips around but can't see anyone. He strides defiantly
back into the pool room.
MACK (CONT'D)
C'mon. I take you all on.
Mack picks up the two gold plated revolvers off the mirror
with coke on it. Suddenly all the coke moves on its own.
The many grams piled there, all merge into one pile.
MACK (CONT'D)
What the...?
He bends down to check it out. And the coke actually flies
straight up off the mirror with the force of a punch and
shoots like a fire hose straight up his nose.
He reels back, choking. Coughing. After having probably an
ounce fly straight up his snot-locker. Blood pouring out his
nose. Wobbly now.
He hears a low echoing laughter through the club, and the
sound of the cue ball breaking and sending pool balls
spinning 'round the table.
MACK (CONT'D)
Who's there?
Bones stands by the pool table, under the overhanging light.
He pulls out his razor and with one savage slice, splinters
the pool cue in two.
MACK (CONT'D)
Bones? Jimmy Bones? That you? You're
dead. I killed you and I stuck your dead
ass in a hole in the ground wrapped in
nothing but your bitch's bloody rags.
Now I'll count the holes in your
muthafuckin' chest. And I'll add a few
more.
He fires both guns at Bones, while backing away. Bones don't
feel a thing. He just picks up the mirror and holds it up
facing Mack.
BONES
This it? Your big-ass tidal wave.
Mack sees his own terrified face staring back from the
mirror, belling hanging over his briefs, coke and blood
clotted on his face.
BONES (CONT'D)
Look like the wave's long gone and
nothing but oil scum, dead fish, and yo'
ugly ass left on the beach.
Mack shoots wildly at Bones. At the mirror - blasting it
into shards.
But Bones stands unscathed. And the shards of broken mirror
do not fall to the ground. They remain in the air, forming a
living room swarm of razor sharp glass.
Mack turns and runs, waaaaay too fucking late, as the swarm
of glass shards fly like angry wasps right at him
Eddie's thrown forward by the sheer force of them, and is
skewered throughout his body by all the glass fragments.
Pinned -- face mashed against the wall.
BONES (CONT'D)
(Mack's voice)
"I'm taking a five dollar kick in the
head that's a quick ticket to heaven."
Mack pinned to the wall. Bleeding from everywhere. Snot
blood-coke mess drips out his nose. Bones pulls Mack's head
back by his hair and slides his razor into the half inch
between his Adam's apple and the wall.
As the juke box changes song, we hear a liquid slice and a
scream slip into a gurgle.
Bones' long hands drip blood as he ties something to his
belt. We don't quite see what it is, not until we catch the
sight of Eddie Mack's headless remains pinned to the wall.
INT. POLICE STATION - NIGHT
Lupovich is at his desk, finishing off a huge Polish sausage.
Talking on the phone. A cop named SAL is nearby, tidying up.
LUPOVICH
I know it. The old slaughterhouse.
(hangs up)
Hey, Sal. That little weasel we popped
today? He's got something for us. I
knew he would once he thought about it.
SAL
Shit, that was fast.
LUPOVICH
12-year olds. They scare easy. Anyway,
he's gonna tip their stash. Come with
me.
SAL
I'm on my way home. Can you handle it
yourself?
LUPOVICH
Oh, no. Please don't make me go by
myself. I'm scaaaaaaaaaared.
SAL
Fuckin' comedian. See you tomorrow.
EXT. ALLWAY - NIGHT
Bones walks the night with a slicing stride. His legs
stretching too far and somehow covering long distance in an
instant. And in slo-motion, like a nightmare, marionette, a
walking shadow, or some great black grasshopper.
MACK'S SEVERED HEAD (O.S.)
(as if swinging back and forth)
Bones! Bones, you muthafuckah! What the
hell you done to me?
Bones stops for a moment and looks down at his waist and we
see Mack's severed head tied to Bones' belt. Severed, yet
seemingly alive.
BONES
Not half what I'm planning on...
MACK'S SEVERED HEAD
This some sick fucked up shit. What you
want with my head?
BONES
Just using it to carry your soul.
MACK'S SEVERED HEAD
My soul? Fuck you. Look, I killed you.
You killed me. Fine. Now...
Bones got no time to argue. He bends and picks up a handful
of fetid city garbage.
MACK'S SEVERED HEAD (CONT'D)
...we're even. No need to get all meta
fucking-phys-i-gack...
And shoves it into the still talking mouth of Mack.
EXT. SOUTHWEST SIDE - NIGHT
Bright, loud summer night. Blues coming from inside a blues
bar, the guy playing "Killin' Floor".
Lupovich heads toward the Armor building. From a distance,
he sees a young runner emerge from a passage on the farside
of the building then set off to meet his mark. Lupovich
heads for the passage, the music following him.
Lupovich looks around to make sure no one is watching. Then
slips into a passageway leading to the old slaughterhouse.
A scary walk through inky darkness, scattered with broken
glass and scurrying rats and lit only by the eerie red light
spilling like blood out of the open door into the old
slaughterhouse at the end of the way.
Lupovich reaches the back, right next to the old loading dock
where the still-livestock were unloaded. He enters the door,
disappearing into the red darkness.
INT. SLAUGHTERHOUSE BUILDING - CONTINUOUS
The room, large and open, soaked in the sodium vapor that
streams through the tall windows from the streetlights.
There are a few blood rusted meat hooks still there, backlit,
hanging from the ceiling. Graffiti covers the walls with
arcane tags and symbols. The floors are caked with a sticky
grime turned black in the orange haze.
In the far corner burn three red votive candles. Behind the
candles lies a crumpled brown paper bag. The stash.
Lupovich starts over to the corner, twitching at the gross
sound of his shoes sticking to the layers of old coagulated
blood on the killing floor.
Behind him, framed for an instant int he doorway - a tall,
sharp shadow, a walking razor - Bones!
The walk is tense. Somehow the music has followed him here
and is echoing and wailing in the walls around him. He gets
to the corner, and reaching over the candles, opens the top
of the paper bag. Jackpot. Five ziplocks of the rocks.
He hears a noise. Lupovich fumbles for his gun and at the
same time reaches to snatch the stash bag. His wrist touches
the candles flame and it burns.
LUPOVICH
Shit! Fuck!
He hears another noise, a blade scraping on concrete, right
behind him. Now the music blends with the echoing squeals of
the hogs once butchered on the cutting line.
Lupovich hears another noise, a blade scraping on concrete,
right behind him. Now the music blends with the echoing
squeals of the hogs once butchered on the cutting line.
Lupovich turns and there, towering over him, stands Bones.
And just as startling, there's Mack's laughing severed head
swinging from his belt.
Lupovich can only choke on his terror, and while his mouth is
open, Bones shoves a glass pipe into it.
Brandishing his razor, Bones packs a rock into the bowl and
torches it. He holds the razor to Lupovich's throat.
BONES
(in Mack's voice)
"Just try it...go ahead...it won't kill
you."
Lupovich, trembling, takes a massive hit of the crack deep
into his lungs. The music and the sounds of the dying pigs
attack him as the coke fills his lungs and then his blood and
then his brain, his eyes starting to bug.
Bones then knocks the pipe from his lips and seals his hand
over Lupovich's mouth and nose. He can't exhale. The sounds
get louder, the grafted walls come alive.
Bones removes his hand revealing Lupovich's nose is fused
shut, and his mouth is simply gone, the skin flat where the
mouth used to be.
Lupovich's gotta lung full of crack, and no way to exhale.
Severed Mack laughs insanely as he sees Lupovich's eyes bulge
as his lungs start to strain under the agony.
His frenzied suffocation is nothing but pure torture. While
he is still kicking with the fear and the drug rush, Bones
drags Lupovich to the middle of the room.
With one arm, Bones lifts the fat cop up and hooks him to one
of the meat hooks above.
BONES (CONT'D)
(in Lupovich's voice)
"I ain't gonna be the only one with this
nigger's blood on my hands..."
As Lupovich squirms, Bones takes his blade, and shoves it in
just below Lupovich's sternum. And a spray of blood paints
Bones and Mack's hanging head.
Thick crack smoke emerges from the wound and floats, foglike,
out of the chest cavity. Bones then yanks the blade
southward and slices the cop's belly wide open.
We hear Lupovich's guts spill out on the floor.
MACK'S SEVERED HEAD
Was that really necessary? Can you wipe
my fucking face? I can't see a goddamned
thing.
The dope smoke wafts in the room four feet off the floor.
The song immolates itself. Blood drips. And Bones adds
another weight to his belt.
EXT. ROSSMORE PARK - NIGHT
Just round the corner from the entrance to the gated suburb.
Cinnabar and Pearl. On foot.
PEARL
We'll have to sneak in.
CINNABAR
No we won't, Momma. I'll just have them
call and tell Patrick it's us.
PEARL
Girl, they build gates like that to keep
people like us out.
Cinnabar walks up to the guard at the gate. He picks up the
phone to check.
INT. PEET HOUSE - CONTINUOUS
Phone rings. Patrick grabs it. But his father's already on
the other end.
GUARD
(on phone)
A young lady to see you. A Miss
Vaughn...
JEREMIAH
No. Sorry. Send her away.
EXT. ROSSMORE GATE - CONTINUOUS
The rent-a-cop hangs up the phone and shakes his head.
GUARD
Sorry Miss.
CINNABAR
Can't I call? And talk to them.
GUARD
Sure. But not from here. Nearest public
phone would be back a few miles. Outside
the mall.
Cinnabar sees it's useless to argue and walks away. Shocked
and hurt. Back to where her mother stands in the shadows
outside the gates.
PEARL
Told you so. Alright. We tried. Let's
go home.
CINNABAR
Mother! No.
Hear a voice from the other side of the gate.
PATRICK
Cinnabar? Walk around the north side.
There's an opening there.
EXT. MAIN GATE - CONTINUOUS
As they sneak around the other side, a dark figure steps
right up to the main gates.
The rent-a-cop wakes up fast when he sees Bones standing in
front of him.
After all, how often does he come face to face with
everything he is there to keep out? He hitches his belt in
best John Wayne style.
GUARD
Can I help y--
...but then he notices the two-severed heads swinging from
Bones' belt. All three of them smile.
MACK'S SEVERED HEAD
Can Jeremiah come out and play?
EXT. NORTH WOODED SIDE - CONTINUOUS
The other outer edge of the sub-development. Patrick leads
them in through some bushes and behind some of the pipe and
power systems of the subdivision.
CINNABAR
Why couldn't you just tell him to let us
in?
PATRICK
My old man calls the shots. He built
that gate and these damn walls.
PEARL
(to Cinnabar)
You sure we oughta save him? Why not
just let see how safe his gates and walls
keep him when his past comes calling?
PATRICK
Save him? What are you talking about?
INT. JEREMIAH'S STUDY - CONTINUOUS
Jeremiah locks the door to his study. Then he pulls out the
stack he hid on his desk. A dusty manila envelope. Inside
photos: the old days. His first wife. His first life. Back
in the old neighborhood. Him and his best friend Jimmy Bones
as children, teenagers and as adults.
BONES (O.S.)
Hey, brotha! What it is?
And Bones stands right behind him. Severed heads hanging
from his belt.
BONES (CONT'D)
What it will be.
JEREMIAH
How did you get in here?
BONES
Time like this, is that what you really
want to know? How I got the fuck in
here?
EXT. MAIN GATE - CONTINUOUS
A car drives up to the gate. But no guard comes out to check
it out. The driver of the car honks. But no response.
Just the aimless squawk of the radio in the booth. Can't
really see into the tooth. The windows are splattered and
obscured by deep red stains.
INT. PEET HOUSE - CONTINUOUS
Patrick runs in with Cinnabar and pearl, past a startled
Nancy.
PATRICK
Where's Dad?
NANCY
His study. Who're your friends?
But they run right past. Though Pearl gives a kind of half
wave 'hi-hello.'
Patrick runs down the hall to his father's study. The door's
locked. From the inside, he pounds on it.
PATRICK
Dad? Open up. Dad??
Bill and Tia stick their heads out to see what all the racket
is.
PATRICK (CONT'D)
C'mon. We got to get in there.
Bill and Patrick slam against the door. Finally it gives way
and they both tumble through the broken door into the room.
INT. JEREMIAH'S STUDY - CONTINUOUS
But it's empty. Jeremiah's not there.
EXT. BONES' BUILDING - NIGHT
A strange, greenish fog up and down the street emanating from
the burnt out shell of the building.
INT. BONES' BUILDING - CONTINUOUS
High in the center, where the master bedroom once was, we see
a kind of mirage forming. Another image of the room still
there, vaguely, luminescent in the night.
INT. PEET HOUSE - CONTINUOUS
They're in shock.
BILL
We can't go back there. Are you crazy?
You saw --
PEARL
It's the only way. It's possible your
father may not be dead yet.
They look around at the mess in the room. Over turned chair.
Signs of struggle. Spatters of blood.
PEARL (CONT'D)
Your father was his best friend. He
loved Jeremiah. So he must hate him the
most of all now. He'll take his time.
But even if it is too late. If your
father is dead. It's not over. The door
has to be closed.
BILL
Well, close the fucking door by all
means. But don't expect me to go down
there and do it.
PEARL
I don't.
She gets up to go. Cinnabar stands too.
PATRICK
You ain't going down there. Not alone.
I'll go.
BILL
Fine. But I'm bringing a couple of
friends.
He steps out of the room and comes back with a gun and a
knife in a sheath on his belt.
PEARL
They won't do you no good.
Bill with a defiant "well, it can't hurt" look. Nancy
appears in the doorway as they hurry out, seeing Bill with
the gun in his hand.
NANCY
What are you doing? I've just called the
police and 911.
PATRICK
Then we need to get out of here. We
can't try to explain this to them. We'll
be back. Hopefully with Dad.
Nancy clings to Tia as the rest of them hurry down the hall.
This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not
appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the
integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited.
INT. BONES' BUILDING/NECROPOLIS VERSION - ETERNAL NIGHT
It is Bones' old bedroom. The Necropolois version. The
floor, the walls, the furniture, everything in it -- formed
out of the wracked and twisted shapes of dead souls.
This is that same version of the room we've glimpsed before.
And it remains, even when the real room has burnt away.
INT. BONES' BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS
Bones there in the flesh, with Jeremiah on his knees. Bones
untying the heads from his belt.
BONES
You two bitches were just meat, never had
any idea smarter than getting yourself a
little more. But my brother Jaybird,
here. He was smart. He didn't just want
more. He wanted more with compound
interest.
Bones shoves the screaming severed heads through the undead
wall of the Necropolis.
SEVERED HEADS POV
For only a flashcut moment, we see the heads see coming at
them - reaching for them. Laughing at them. The undead.
BONES (CONT'D)
Time for him to collect his interest.
Jeremiah's gonna have the unique
experience of seeing his reward, tasting
it while he's still alive.
Bones wraps his long arm around Jeremiah's neck in a
brotherly choke hold. Jeremiah terrified.
EXT. LAKE SHORE DRIVE - NIGHT
Pearl, Cinnabar, Bill and Patrick speed south by car.
PEARL
... see there ain't just two parts to a
person. There's three. Body-Soul and
Spirit. The spirit lives in the blood.
It's the wanting that holds body and soul
together, and sometimes, the wanting
lives on. Jimmy's blood must still be in
the house.
PATRICK
But the place burned to the ground.
PEARL
The blood is still there. We just gotta
figure out where.
CINNABAR
In his grave there was a cloth or a dress
or something. Covered with blood.
PEARL
My God. My dress. We have to find it.
And burn it. And shut the door.
Bill and Patrick look at Pearl like she might be crazy. Then
they see Cinnabar next to her, glaring back at them.
INT. BONES' BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS
Bones has Jeremiah on his feet now, leading him towards the
wall of the undead.
Suddenly, hands shoot out of the wall, only inches away from
Jeremiah's face! He twists and turns to stay away from them,
but the long nails on one of the hands claw at his cheek.
While hungry mouths open from the palms of hands.
BONES
(keeping Jeremiah out from
hands' reach)
I don't understand it. You were my Man.
Since we was grasshoppas. I always
looked after you. You had a piece of
everything I had.
JEREMIAH
I didn't want a piece of yours, I wanted
my own.
BONES
And the hell everybody else, right?
Bones pushing Jeremiah's face towards the grasping hands.
JEREMIAH
Wait, Jimmy. Think about it. You woulda
done the same thing if you was me.
BONES
No brother. I wouldn'ta. I never done a
man - any man. Let alone a brother like
that. Course, as you can see, no good
deed goes unfucked. Now the question is,
if the good get fucked, what we got saved
up for the bad? You about to find out.
Bones rams Jeremiah's head (his eyes closed in fear) through
the Necropolis wall.
INT. NECROPOLIS WALL - CONTINUOUS
Jeremiah's head inside now. Eyes still closed, head bobbing
in the jelly-like base that holds what he sees when he dares
to open his eyes.
Hideous malformed faces, genetic anomalies, the kinds of
faces that wound up in side-shows in less enlightened times.
All laughing and leering and glaring at Jeremiah.
FULL C.U. - LUPOVICH'S FACE AND HEAD
The skin peeling away like congealed jelly. Lupovich tries
to talk to Jeremiah or to scream but nothing comes out.
Except for a hideous wobbling bubble.
For a subliminal moment, Jeremiah sees a figure trapped
inside the bubble. His own figure, silently screaming to get
out.
NEW ANGLE
Suddenly, Jeremiah is screaming for real as Bones has just
yanked his head back out of the wall.
BONES
It's a trip, ain't it?
Bones sounding almost sympathetic to Jeremiah. Almost.
This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not
appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the
integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited.
EXT. BONES NEIGHBORHOOD - NIGHT
Suddenly, as they round a corner onto Blackstone, they see
tendrils of an eerie greenish fog. It seems to be emanating
from the still smoking remains of Bones' house. Or perhaps
it is just the smoke, tinged only by the gaseous street
lights.
PEARL
We've got to hurry. We've got to shut
the door. They're getting out.
Then there's a shape and a thump! The real terror of
thinking your car just hit a human being.
Then a face appears in the car window. Just a homeless guy
shaking an angry fist at them. Quickly, he's gone in the
fog.
Straining to see, Patrick stops, grabbing a flashlight from
his glove box. They all get out. Making their way through
the fog, glimpsing in darkened doorways, eerie shapes,
perhaps more of the dead out of Necropolis.
EXT. BEHIND THE BUILDING - CONTINUOUS
They arrive at the back side of the ruined building.
PATRICK
There was a storm door, to the cellar.
They search frantically in the dark amongst the tall weeds
abandoned junk and burnt rubble.
INT. BONES' BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS
Jeremiah still with Bones, looking for a way out.
JEREMIAH
What will it take? What do you want?
Just tell me, Jimmy!
BONES
Aw that's easy. I want my life back.
Can you swing that, my brother?
JEREMIAH
You know I can't.
BONES
Then fuck it!!!
In a righteous fury, Bones headlocks Jeremiah again and rams
his head through the Necropolis wall.
OVER JEREMIAH'S SHOULDER - HIS POV
As he's back inside face to face with living dead mutations,
with Lupovich's head coming at him, it's mouth suddenly
opening to ten times its normal size, swallowing Jeremiah
whole.
BACK WITH BONES
Watching with some pity as the rest of Jeremiah, his legs and
feet are pulled into the wall and gone. Accompanied by the
disappearing screams of the last of Jeremiah.
BONES (CONT'D)
(sadly)
Dog eat dog, brother. Dog eat dog.
EXT. BEHIND THE BUILDING - CONTINUOUS
They search for the cellar door. The night air is shattered
by a scream, at once very close and infinitely far. Finally:
BILL
Here!
He's found a chipped gray storm door. Patrick easily kicks
in the rotten wood revealing a dark tunnel of stairs leading
down beneath the ruins of the building into the sub-basement.
PATRICK
It's not safe down there. The fire
started down there. The whole thing
could collapse.
PEARL
Then your father's a dead man and Jimmy
Bones is gonna be around a long time.
Patrick steps down into the darkness of the cellar, his
flashlight on.
INT. STORM CELLAR - CONTINUOUS
The group stoops low as they descend the stairs. Beneath
wood supports, the dirt is reclaiming it, already a constant
trickle of dirty falling from between the boards.
In the dim, Patrick leads them, walking through a mass of
spider infested webs and, just ahead, is the sub-basement
where they originally found the body.
INT. SUB-BASEMENT - CONTINUOUS
Throwing debris aside, they come next through a small door at
the bottom of the stairs and enter the sub-basement. Nearby
is the elevator shaft, a gaping hole in the ruins - but
recognizable as such. The ceiling above them is nearly
collapsed, and over most of the room, the accumulated debris
and ruin from above has simply fallen through.
And what remains of the ceiling is still shifting, groaning,
coming apart.
Patrick shines his flashlight down to the ground, until:
PATRICK
Here.
He's found the hole that was Bones' hastily dug grave, but
there's nothing in it now but swarming white maggots.
PEARL
Is it there?
She gets down on her hands and knees as Patrick shines the
light, but after a few frantic moments of digging, it's
clear:
PEARL (CONT'D)
It's gone. He got it.
Just then the sound of tremendous strain and creaking of
wood. And the ceiling starts to give way. They all scramble
for shelter, and then it gives way completely -- completely
blocking their way out. They're trapped.
BILL
NO!!!!!!
They all look in every direction for some glimpse of hope -
of a way out. There is none. Then they hear behind them: a
resonant "DING!"
TURNING - THEIR POV
Where moments before there was a gaping, ruined elevator
shaft, there is now a fully functioning elevator just as it
was in 1979, the doors opening to them in eerie slo-mo.
Pearl starts towards the open car. The others trying to hold
her back.
PEARL
It's alright. Let me.
She walks closer, peering into the dark recesses of the
elevator. Maybe again a flash of visible movement inside.
Closer ever closer, until Pearl, almost entranced, steps in.
And once inside, there's no one, or no thing, there. Pearl
is about to tell them "It's okay..." when suddenly the doors
of the elevator slide-slam shut.
CINNABAR
Mama!!!!!
Then they hear the elevator chain start to move and the
elevator starts to rise. Cinnabar screaming louder.
INT. THE ELEVATOR - CONTINUOUS
Pearl stands there, summoning all her courage for what she
knows she's going to have to face. Watching the elevator
arrow as it climbs to the number three.
INT. SUB-BASEMENT - CONTINUOUS
Patrick and Bill beat on the door and try to pry it open.
Then they try jamming jagged boards into the opening, but
still to no avail.
PEARL'S POV
As a moment later, the car stops and the doors open onto:
INT. BONES' PAD - CONTINUOUS
Down to the last detail, exactly as it was 22 years ago, the
night Bones died. Music playing (the Delfonics "Didn't I
Blow Your Mind This Time...") The only new detail are the
dozens of candles romantically burning everywhere.
BONES (O.S.)
Hey, baby.
Pearl feels a soft touch on the back of her neck and spins,
finds Jimmy right behind, almost nuzzling her. His face
hidden, though, in darkness. Holding something in his hand,
behind his back.
PEARL
(still with her back to him)
Jimmy, you've got --
BONES
I've got what I want. Turn around baby,
look at me. Look at your man.
She turns slowly, and we don't know what to expect.
Something horrible or something beautiful.
Finally, she's face to face, and it's Jimmy just as he was,
22 years ago. All traces of the demonic are gone. Pearl
melts as the Delfonics swell, Jimmy holding her close.
BONES (CONT'D)
I want you to do something for me, baby.
PEARL
What?
We see what he's holding: the dress. Rotted and blood
clotted and ruined.
BONES
I always loved you in this dress.
He holds it up for Pearl to see and from:
HER POV
The dress is brand new and beautiful. She's finally
entranced.
INT. THE SUB-BASEMENT - CONTINUOUS
Patrick, Bill and Cinnabar have managed now to pry open the
elevators outer doors. They step inside on the soft ashen
ground and look up:
THEIR POV
The shaft goes all the way into eternity. But along the
tacked walls, they see hand and footholds put there for
workers.
PATRICK
We can climb out.
BILL
Climb out to where?
PATRICK
Anywhere but here.
One by one they start to climb, Bill first. As they climb,
they become aware of light on the first floor level just
ahead.
BACK IN BONES' CRIB
Pearl steps into the frame to look at herself in a floor
length mirror on Bones' closest door.
PEARL'S POV - IN THE MIRROR
Not only the dress, but she too looks exactly as she was 22
years ago, skin smooth as cocoa butter, eyes free from worry
and pain.
Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly" as Jimmy takes her in his
arms and starts to slow dance her in the midst of all those
candles.
PEARL
Where are we, baby?
BONES
Where we'll always be...
PEARL
But.
BONES
Hush, baby.
Pulls her closer, closer, until her last misgivings are gone.
Whatever purpose she came with lost in the power of having
the impossible.
INT. THE ELEVATOR SHAFT - CONTINUOUS
The three still climbing handhold by handhold, knocking loose
dirt in each others' eyes. Bill is just now reaching the
first floor level, trying to force open the outer doors.
Suddenly, an ominous sound: the chain/mechanism of the
elevator as they see it starting to descend towards them.
Panicking, Bill tries with all his might.
As the elevator inches closer and closer --
Until Bill finally manages to get the doors open. They all
scramble to safety just as the elevator slides by them.
NEW ANGLE
After they catch their breath, they look up and around to
find themselves --
INT. THE NECROPOLIS - CONTINUOUS
A distorted M.C. Escher-like feel to the place. Where up
seems to be down, down up, and left is right. Not helped by
behind only lit by the eerie flickering gaseous lamps
outside, and the moonlight falling through the skylight.
Then, slowly through the gloom, they begin to perceive that
the walls are clotted and congealed, teratomic masses of
distorted flesh; faces, limbs, eyes, mouths, all trapped -
all contorted in agony. At first they seem to be frozen in
the walls, like the ruins of Herculaneum. But then we see --
They are slowly writhing, moving. Hands grasping, teeth and
rotted jaws widening, and worst of all, the eyes staring out.
PATRICK
Is this Hell?
BILL
(gripping the gun)
Or just Hell-adjacent...
CINNABAR
Ain't no Heaven. Ain't no Hell. There's
just the world of the dead, my momma
always talked about. Like she said, the
door is open, and we're seeing right
through our world into this one. We just
have to remember what was really here.
And follow it. Those stairs should take
us to the second floor.
As they approach the stairs they can hear faintly above the
drone/moan of the dead, the soft music playing in Bones'
crib.
ANGLE AS
They start up the stairs into the darkness. Patrick first,
Cinnabar in between him and Bill. Patrick still holding his
flashlight, but it's starting to flicker a little.
More of the same horror along the stairway walls, eyes
looking at them, hands caress Cinnabar's hair, another hand
shooting up from the stair floor and grabbing Bill's thigh.
Bill stabs the hand with the knife on his belt. And the
hands shoot back down.
BACK IN BONES' CRIB
The Munch-like dance of death goes on, Bones stroking the
back of her neck.
BONES
Just like I told you this morning, I'd be
stroking your neck tonight.
Pearl absolutely lost.
BACK ON THE STAIRS
The three still ascending when Patrick's flashlight suddenly
cuts out. Total darkness.
PATRICK
Shit.
A faint sound: Patrick shaking the flashlight. Nothing but
the sound of breathing, both human and non-human.
PATRICK (CONT'D)
Thing worked fine a minute ago.
Batteries were brand new --
Then as suddenly as it went out, the flashlight comes back
on, illuminating a horrible sight: Maurice. Standing right
there, a few feet in front of them.
BILL
Maurice!
Maurice puts a finger to his lips and beckons them to follow.
The boys want it to be Maurice. But Cinnabar knows better.
CINNABAR
That's not Maurice --
But with the beam of the flickering flashlight, they follow
the shadowy figure up the steps.
Then Maurice gets a bit to far ahead, and they can't see him
for a beat.
PATRICK
Maurice. Hold up, man.
Then after a silent beat, just Maurice's hand appears back
out of the darkness, beckoning them onward. Then the
flashlight cuts out again. They're back in the darkness.
PATRICK (CONT'D)
(as he shakes the flashlight)
Okay, we're on the second floor. I feel
it. No more steps.
The sound of Patrick cursing and shaking the batteries around
in the torch. Eventually it comes on again.
Up ahead, they still barely see Maurice, his back to them,
face in one quarter profile, leading them towards the next
flight of stairs at the end of the hall.
They follow. Closer and closer to the stairs, Maurice going
eerily in and out of their vision. The flashlight dies
again.
Darkness. Patrick shakes it and it comes back quickly. Then
just as quickly dies again! A shake and it's lit again --
just as Bill is stepping into the corner where Maurice
disappeared.
FLICKERING HORROR
As the dog leaps at them from the corner, all teeth and
slavering jaws! Everyone scrambles for their lives, and the
flashlight falls to the floor.
LOW ANGLE FROM THE FLOOR - JUST BEHIND THE FLASHLIGHT
We see the skewed horror: as the dog tears at Bill, as his
gun skitters across the floor; as Patrick grabs the gun and
fires, and we get a bit more illumination from the exploding
gunpowder. But it does no good.
Bill screams in terror as he's torn to pieces, and then the
flashlight goes out and again, we're in Stygian darkness.
The sound of Bill dying and a long silence.
PATRICK (CONT'D)
Bill?! Cinnabar? Cinnabar?!
No answer. At first. Finally in husky voice:
CINNABAR
I'm here.
PATRICK
Bill! Bill?!
CINNABAR
Patrick, he's...
PATRICK
Okay, okay. Listen:
From somewhere comes the sound of the music from Bones' crib.
PATRICK (CONT'D)
Here, find my hand. The stairs are right
near here. I saw them. Let's just walk
up there.
CINNABAR
I can't find you.
PATRICK
Here!
Silence. As we expect the worse, expect something else to
take her hand. But then:
CINNABAR
Is that you?
Pause -- the music from Bones' crib still beckons to them.
PATRICK
Yeah. Come on. Don't let go.
We're in near total darkness as they climb the stairs, maybe
a bit of moonlight now coming in from the roofless third
floor they're approaching. All we can hear is their
footsteps and their breathing as they walk the rest of the
way up the stairs and emerge into:
BONES' CRIB - THEIR POV
Both amazed to see Pearl as young and beautiful as Cinnabar
is, clinging to the dashing Jimmy dancing to the spectral
sounds of some soul classic from back in the day. Cinnabar
entranced by the vision.
ANGLE AS
Pearl opens her dreaming eyes and sees them, smiling and
beckoning Cinnabar to come join her. Cinnabar begins to.
Patrick watches her until he hears something O.S. calling to
him. It sounds a million miles away and yet right in his
ear. And it sounds like Jeremiah.
JEREMIAH
Paaatrick...
This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not
appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the
integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited.
PATRICK'S POV
He turns and looks at the wall -- subtly surging from beneath
the surface of the wall he sees flashes of faces and hands,
mouths twisted in torment. He moves to the wall, drawn by
the strange sight and the recurring sound...
JEREMIAH (CONT'D)
(as if a million miles away)
Patrick. Help me.
It's coming from within the wall.
INTERCUTTING
Now, while Cinnabar is advancing towards her mother and
father across the room --
Patrick, at the wall, tries to place his ear near it in order
to hear where the voice is coming from.
While Cinnabar is now within Bones' reach. Pearl steps back
to allow Jimmy to embrace Cinnabar. They're reunited.
BONES
Welcome home, baby girl.
Pearl watches as Bones caresses his daughter's cheek.
Patrick now close to the wall -- trying to hear the faint
voice calling to him.
JEREMIAH
Please...help me...
PATRICK
Dad?
Suddenly something enormous presses out from the wall.
Patrick stumbles back as his father's head and torso press
out from the wall, stretched in straining effort.
JEREMIAH
Help me. I'm so sorry. But please, help
me...
PATRICK
Daddy?
Jeremiah, or what he's become embedded into the wall, his
face stretched, mouth huge and hollow eyes dripping bloody
tears.
JEREMIAH
Please. Help me. I'm scared.
Patrick in anguish.
JEREMIAH (CONT'D)
It hurts. I don't want to spend forever
like this.
Jeremiah's arm reaches out from the wall, grasping towards
Patrick, who reaches out to his father --
When suddenly with frightening speed Jeremiah grabs it, and
wrenches Patrick to him, pulling Patrick flush up against the
wall, even starting to suck him in to the wall.
PATRICK
No!!!
As Patrick struggles and writhes and twists to get free from
his father's grasp, he can see back across the room to the
others. He sees the room as it really is - he can see what's
really happening.
Pearl, not in a new dress, but in a horrible tattered, blood
encrusted old dress, standing next to a rotting cadaver
that's stroking Cinnabar's cheek and holding her close...
Jeremiah pulling Patrick into the wall, into the Necropolis
itself. Patrick, though, just as concerned with Cinnabar as
with himself, yelling at her across the crib.
PATRICK (CONT'D)
Cinnabar! Stop!
But Cinnabar doesn't even turn her head. She just steps into
her father's embrace. But Pearl does seem to hear something.
She looks back at Patrick, beneath the illusion of the room
she sees him being pulled into the awful wall, and can hear
him more clearly now.
PATRICK (CONT'D)
No! Cinnabar, no!!!!
Slowly, Pearl turns and looks into the mirror and she gets a
full-length view of herself: a woman in ruined tatters of her
old, rotted dress.
Then, coming into her view in the mirror is her only daughter
-- dancing with a decayed corpse.
PEARL
Noooooo!
Pearl whirls and rips Cinnabar away from Bones, who at first
sort of chuckles to himself. But he stops laughing when
Pearl grabs the nearest candle and presses the flame to her
breast. In a terrible whoosh, the dried old dress and Pearl
are engulfed in flames.
BONES
NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
Bones runs to Pearl and throws his arms around her, trying to
smother the flames any way he can.
PEARL
(to Patrick and Cinnabar)
Get out!!! Go!!!
Cinnabar in a shattered daze on the floor, sees her mother in
flames.
Patrick desperately tries to escape his father's death grip.
Finally, with horrible sound, Patrick wrestles free from the
wall, and from his father.
He lurches free from them and makes it over to Cinnabar and
drags her out the door just as the room dissolves around
them. As the flames destroy the dress and the last vestiges
of Bones' blood on it, the room begins to turn to ash.
An eerie wind from nowhere begins to howl, blowing the ash
and smoke from the dress and from the dissolving walls.
Cinnabar taking one last glance at the funeral pyre that was
her mother and Bones now, too, sees them almost lost in a
shroud of flame and ash.
ANGLE AS
Patrick and Cinnabar run down the corridor and back down the
stairs, the moon overhead and the flames from Bones crib
giving everything a flickering hellish cat.
Everything behind and above them crumbling to dust. The
floor and then the stairs and all the howling bodies trapped
inside.
ON THE FIRST FLOOR
They reach the open elevator shaft.
PATRICK
We gotta jump!
CINNABAR
I can't!
Everything around them rumbling and crumbling.
PATRICK
We have to!
Patrick jumps and lands in the muddy ashes, dazed but unhurt.
LOOKING UP
He sees Cinnabar peering over the edge in fear. Then, behind
her, he can hear a low rumbling growl. He sees Cinnabar turn
and scream --
Ashes and falling debris then temporarily blind hen he wipes
his eyes and looks up, Cinnabar is gone from view.
PATRICK (CONT'D)
Cinnabar! Where are you!?
He immediately climbs back up the shaft when he sees Cinnabar
standing at the edge of the shaft above him.
PATRICK (CONT'D)
Cinn! Jump!!
And she jumps, landing right next to Patrick, who quickly
gets her to her feet.
PATRICK (CONT'D)
Let's go!!!
They run out of the shaft and into the sub-basement just as
the elevator and shaft dissolve into ash.
A hurricane wind blowing down and out of the shaft now.
Mixed with the sound of all the screaming, moaning souls in
the Necropolis.
Patrick in a fury to live tears away the boards and debris
blocking the exit.
He pulls Cinnabar out with him and they walk up the cellar
stairs, step into the dawn, weary, beaten down but not dead.
EXT. BONES' BUILDING - DAY
They've made it out of the Inferno. Like Dante said "Thus we
emerged again to see the stars." No stars here, just the
glorious dawn.
Patrick stops, feels the new sun on his face. Breathes clean
air again for the first time.
PATRICK
We made it...
Then from behind or above or somewhere we can hear what might
be a low, low chuckle. Jimmy Bones' chuckle.
BONES (O.S.)
Dog eat dog, boy. Dog eat dog...
Patrick turns and spins in mounting horror. There, behind
him, right where Cinnabar was standing...
The black dog. It leaps right at the camera, filling the
frame with huge teeth and bloody red tongue. WE FREEZE.
FADE TO BLACK.
END CREDITS